You bought a ring light. You tested your internet connection. You positioned your camera at eye level and made sure your background looked professional. You did everything right.
And you are still at a disadvantage.
If you have ever felt like video interviews are harder than in-person ones, you are not imagining things. The format itself creates a structural penalty that no amount of preparation can fully overcome. The problem is not your technology. It is physics.
The Research
In 2020, a team of researchers led by Johannes Basch at Ulm University in Germany ran an experiment to understand why video interviews feel so different. They recruited 114 participants and randomly assigned them to either face-to-face interviews or Skype interviews. Both groups answered the same 13 behavioral questions from trained interviewers using identical structured protocols.
The results were stark. Video candidates received significantly lower performance ratings, with a medium effect size of d = 0.43. That is not a subtle difference. In practical terms, it means video candidates were systematically rated as less competent, regardless of their actual qualifications.
But here is what makes this study particularly revealing: the researchers also had raters evaluate recordings of the exact same interviews. Even when watching recordings of face-to-face interviews, raters gave higher scores than when watching the live video interview. The medium itself was the problem.
Why This Happens
The biggest culprit is eye contact. On video, maintaining real eye contact is physically impossible. To appear like you are looking someone in the eye, you have to stare at your camera lens, which means you cannot actually see their face. And if you look at their face on screen, you appear to be looking down or away.
This is not a minor inconvenience. The effect size for eye contact quality was d = 1.21. That is massive. In the world of psychology research, any effect above 0.8 is considered large. Eye contact rated 1.21 standard deviations worse is an enormous gap that affects how interviewers perceive everything else about you.
The study also found that impression management suffered on video (d = 0.48 lower). The subtle signals you use to build rapport, read the room, and adjust your delivery in real time get compressed, delayed, or lost entirely through a webcam. You are essentially trying to have a human conversation through a keyhole.
Practical Applications
The video penalty is real, but it is not insurmountable. Here is how to minimize it:
1. Prioritize Camera Eye Contact Over Screen Watching
This feels unnatural because you cannot see reactions, but it dramatically improves how you are perceived. Consider placing a small photo of someone you trust right next to your camera lens to give yourself something friendly to look at. Some speakers stick a googly eye next to their webcam as a focal point.
2. Overcommunicate Your Engagement Verbally
The subtle nods and facial expressions that work in person get lost on video. Make your active listening audible by using brief verbal affirmations like "yes," "I see," and "that makes sense." When you cannot rely on visual cues to show you are engaged, your voice must carry that signal.
3. Perfect Your Verbal Delivery First
Since video interviews split your cognitive resources between visual presentation and verbal content, the more automatic your verbal delivery becomes, the more bandwidth you free up for managing the visual challenges. When your words flow confidently without filler or hesitation, you can focus more attention on maintaining camera eye contact and projecting engagement.
4. Practice in the Actual Medium
Recording yourself answering interview questions reveals blind spots you would never notice in person. Watch for how you appear during pauses, whether your eye line looks natural, and how your energy translates through the screen. But before adding the visual complexity, master your verbal responses through audio-only practice.
The Bottom Line
Video interviews penalize candidates in ways that have nothing to do with qualifications or preparation. The format itself creates structural barriers to connection that even the best technology cannot fix. Knowing this is not an excuse to give up. It is an invitation to practice in ways that address the specific constraints of the medium.
Put This Into Practice
Understanding the video interview penalty is the first step. The key insight is that video interviews demand more cognitive resources than in-person conversations. You are simultaneously managing your verbal content, your visual presentation, and the unnatural mechanics of camera eye contact.
Interview practice in speaking.app is audio-only by design. You can practice responses to common interview questions and get AI feedback on filler words, pacing, and content structure without the distraction of a camera. This lets you polish your verbal delivery until it becomes second nature.
Once your verbal responses are confident and automatic, you can add video self-recording on your own device to work on the visual layer. By separating these skills, you avoid the cognitive overload of trying to improve everything at once.
The candidates who succeed on video are the ones who have built such strong verbal foundations that they have mental bandwidth left over for the visual challenges.