Where to look during a video interview: camera or screen?

Look at the camera lens, not the face on your screen. The lens is what the other person sees, so talking to it reads as eye contact. Looking at their image makes you appear to glance away. Shrink the call window and drag it under the webcam. The same rule holds for a panel or a one-way interview.

That sentence answers the question. The reason it is worth a whole page is that “the camera” is not the full answer once there is a panel grid, a shared screen, your notes, and sometimes no live person at all. This page maps exactly where to point your eyes in each of those situations.

Why the screen feels right but looks wrong

The instinct on any call is to look at the person you are talking to. On video that person sits on your screen, usually an inch or two below the webcam. So you look at their eyes, and the camera, mounted above, catches you looking down and slightly off to the side.

You feel like you are making eye contact. They see someone who never quite meets it. To a viewer it reads as glancing at notes, checking a second screen, or avoiding their gaze. The gap is small in inches and obvious on camera.

This is not a willpower problem. You cannot stare into a small black dot for half an hour by force of concentration and still sound like a person. The fix is to close the distance between the face you want to look at and the lens you need to look into. The full step-by-step is in how to make eye contact on a video interview; the short version is below, because where you look depends on getting this setup right first.

The shrink-and-drag fix, in under a minute

Three moves, on a laptop or an external monitor.

1. Shrink the call window. Drag a corner so the video is small, not full screen. A smaller window keeps the other person’s face in a tight area near the top, closer to the lens.
2. Drag it directly under your webcam. On a laptop the camera sits at the top center, so park the window right beneath it. On an external monitor, move the window to whichever edge is nearest your webcam. Now their face is as close to the lens as it can get, and glancing at it barely pulls your eyes off camera.
3. Hide your self-view. This is the step most people skip and the one that helps most. Watching your own face is the single biggest cause of restless, darting eyes. Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet all let you hide self-view. Check your framing once, then turn it off so there is nothing to watch but the lens.

After this, your eyeline to the lens and your eyeline to their face are almost identical. You can flick down to read a reaction and snap back without looking like you wandered off.

The 50% rule: speaking versus listening

More eye contact is not automatically better. A fixed, unbroken stare into the lens looks as strange on camera as it would across a table. Real conversation has rhythm.

The rule that holds up: hold the lens almost the entire time you are listening, and about half the time while you are speaking. People naturally break gaze to think when they talk. Glancing up and to the side for a second while you find the next sentence is normal and human. What you are avoiding is the long downward look at notes, and the eyes that never settle because they are tracking your own reflection.

So the asymmetry is the point. When the interviewer is talking, give them steady attention on the lens. When you are talking, let yourself look away briefly to think, then come back. If you naturally glance around while you reason out loud, you do not need to suppress it. Let the listening half carry the steady contact.

Where to look when there is more than one face

A panel is where “look at the camera” gets confusing, because now there are two to five faces on screen and an instinct to address each one. Chasing every face around the grid is exactly what makes your eyes dart on camera.

The fix is to keep the lens as your home base and let the grid be a place you glance, not a place you live.

• When you answer, talk to the lens. Counterintuitive, but it makes every panelist feel addressed at once, the same way a speaker on stage looks out at a room rather than locking onto one person.
• Acknowledge the asker by name at the start. “Good question, Priya” lands the personal touch, then you return to the lens for the answer itself. You do not need to stare at Priya’s tile for ninety seconds to show her you heard her.
• Glance at the grid between answers, not during them. After you finish a point, a quick scan of the faces reads as checking the room. Mid-sentence, it reads as distraction.
• When someone off screen jumps in, do not hunt for them. Turn your attention back to the lens and answer. The panel can see you fine; you do not need to find which tile is speaking.

The full playbook for multiple interviewers, including how to research the panel and field a curveball, is in how to handle a virtual panel interview. A virtual group interview, where you are one of several candidates, follows the same eyeline logic: lens when you speak, attention on whoever is talking when you listen.

Where to look during a screen-share or technical question

If you share your screen to walk through a portfolio, a spreadsheet, or code, your eyes will naturally go to the content. That is fine, and expected. Nobody wants you staring at the lens while you click through a deck.

Two small adjustments keep it from reading as a total disconnect. Narrate as you go, so your voice stays connected even when your eyes are on the work. And return to the lens at transitions, the moment you finish a section or hand the conversation back. The pattern is: talk to the screen while you demonstrate, talk to the lens while you explain why it matters. The same applies to a live technical or whiteboard exercise. Look at the problem while you solve it, look at the camera when you talk through your thinking.

Where to look when you are using notes

A few notes off to the side are smart, in any interview. The trap is where you put them and how much you write.

Put a short list of bullet points on a sticky note or a card just beside your webcam, not in a document below the camera on your main screen. Notes below the lens drag your eyes down in the one direction that reads worst, the downward glance that looks like you are checking an answer. Notes beside the lens let you flick across with a small sideways movement that barely registers.

Keep them to cue words, not sentences. The reason is in the eyeline. Reading a paragraph pulls your eyes in a steady side-to-side sweep, and that sweep is the single most visible tell on camera. As one interviewer put it, watching for eye movement is how they catch it: “you can literally tell if someone is reading an answer to you.” That is one recruiter’s take, but reviewers say it often. Three or four words you glance at are invisible. A script you scan is not. More on getting this balance right is in taking notes during a virtual interview.

Where to look in a one-way interview, with no one there

This is the part most “where to look” advice skips, because most of it assumes a live person. A growing share of first-round screening is now a one-way video interview, where you record answers to set questions on your own time and a hiring team watches the recording later. There is no face on screen to look at. So where do your eyes go?

The lens, the same as a live call. A real person watches the recording afterward and judges your delivery exactly the way they would in real time. Look at the camera, not at the preview of yourself that most recording tools show while you talk.

That preview is the key difference, and it cuts in your favor. On a one-way interview there is no other person’s tile competing for your attention, so the only things pulling your eyes are your own self-view and your notes. Hide or ignore the preview, and the eyeline problem nearly solves itself. What remains is the notes trap, which matters more here than anywhere, because there is no live conversation to make reading look like thinking. Keep notes to bullets beside the lens and talk from memory. The reviewer is watching for the same sweep a live interviewer would catch.

So on a one-way interview the rule narrows to one line: talk to the lens, from memory and a couple of cues, not from a paragraph you are scanning. The deeper mechanics of recording well under a timer are in how to pass a one-way video interview.

A word on AI scoring and your eyes

If you have read that an AI grades where you look, here is the grounded version. Some recorded-interview vendors used to analyze facial movement and expression, and it drew real criticism on fairness, especially for neurodiverse and international candidates. HireVue, the most cited example, dropped its facial-analysis feature in 2021. Most modern one-way platforms now score what you say, transcribed from your audio, against the role’s criteria, not where your pupils point.

The practical takeaway does not change. Look at the lens because a human reviewer watches the recording and responds to eye contact the way any of us does, not because an algorithm is counting your blinks. If you are not even sure whether your interview is AI-scored, is it an AI interview walks through how to tell.

The quick version

• Look at the lens, not the face on your screen. The lens is what they see.
• Shrink the window, drag it under the webcam, hide self-view so your eyeline to the lens and to their face are the same.
• Listening: hold the lens. Speaking: about half, with natural glances away to think.
• Panel: talk to the lens, name the asker, scan the grid between answers, not during.
• Screen-share: look at the work while you demonstrate, the lens while you explain.
• Notes: a few cue words beside the lens, never a script below it.
• One-way interview: lens again, ignore the self-preview, and do not read.

Once your eyeline is sorted, the rest of the setup takes two minutes. See virtual interview lighting and camera setup for getting the camera to eye level and your face lit from the front, and virtual interview tips for everything that makes the whole thing land.