Being Camera-On in Virtual Meetings Is Essential For Your Career Prospects

Whether we’re working in startups, SMBs or enterprises, we have to connect and collaborate to solve problems together. Thanks to the pandemic, most of this is happening on virtual platforms, and workplace collaboration is changing as we speak. But people aren’t bringing their faces into the discussions like they used to do pre-pandemic. What I have experienced and also heard from my professional circle is that many professionals join video calls with their cameras turned off. They hide their faces from the same people they have been working with in the past, face to face, every day. It’s like they would walk into a physical meeting room with a paper bag over their heads or with the lights turned off. Don’t get me wrong; I used to be a camera-off person too. After the first wave of shutdowns, I realized I didn’t need to dress up nicely anymore to do my job, and I could forget the makeup and the hair. It was exhilarating for a short period. Being home, cozy in my non-touched-up realness, messy hair, bare face, sitting on the couch is my sweatpants, working. Everyone did the same, and at first, many of us kept that little toggle in the OFF position. We started to talk to profile pictures instead of having conversations with one another. And it didn’t feel right. <a href="https://index.medium.com/5-ways-turning-my-camera-on-in-virtual-meetings-helped-me-grow-as-a-professional-1228d7a1cf34">Read More</a>