After realizing the only things ng standing between me and a job is pulling off this exercise, and repeatedly failing, I had an epiphany.

I am actually a decent actor. I can convince people I'm "normal", it's a skill set I've been practicing and refining my entire life.

But interviewing on this medium is not an exercise in acting.

It's fucking green screen acting.

I now understand why actors bitched so much post Phantom Menace as digital effects driven film came to dominate the industry.

I now understand why Ian McKellan cried after spending hours alone on an empty soundstage trying to deliver a performance while filming The Hobbit movies, claiming "This is not what I signed up for."

I was so confused up till now. I am no longer affected in any way by anxiety or stress on the interview aspect of a multi hour teams interview. It's not fielding unexpected or gotcha questions, or the exercise of converting what they're saying into what they mean.

It's the fact that I have to do all of this while staring at a green light like a fucking psycho, imagining/pretending that it's a person or a group of people.

It's the exercise of being alone in a silent room with a computer and pretending that I'm in a conference room with 8 people discussing an opportunity.

It's a fucking nightmare.

All the skills developed in the real world in the presence of real people now need to be applied on top of an exercise of self delusion in the absence of all the contextual clues in body language, subtext, "energy/vibe" etc.

This is not what I signed up for.

It's a sick fucking joke the hoops and barriers between people and good jobs.

The practice of video chat interviews being integrated into the employment pipeline is... I am looking for a word that's a combination of "prejudicial/racist/exclusionary".

And the insanity on top of all this shit is the skillsets blocking me from employment has 0 relevance or utility in the actual position.

I will never need the skillsets of expert resume writer, applicant tracking system hacker, Instagram model, green screen actor etc. ever again after getting a job.

Hope this rant helps someone square the circle with a minimum of suffering. Pay it forward