Category Archives: Technology

re the interview question “what did you do with your extra time during the pandemic”

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I turned on the television and heard a sentence about expecting a question during an interview – “what did you do with your extra time during the pandemic”. I don’t know the context or if this is a common question. I certainly hope is isn’t!

Is this an illegal question?

I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know. It feels dangerously close to illegal questions though. You aren’t allowed to ask someone at an interview if they have kids. And guess what group of people did not have extra time during the pandemic? People with young children.

Similarly, you aren’t allowed to ask if someone had COVID-19. Guess what other group of people did not have extra time during the pandemic? People with long haul COVID-19.

Is this an insensitive question?

Absolutely. Some people had less time during the pandemic. Some were upset. Some found it hard to concentrate. Some lost an immediate family member. Also, it’s none of your damn business.

Why are you asking in the first place?

I’ll assume you aren’t being nosy or trying to cleverly find out information that would be illegal to ask. And how does it help you find out that your prospective hire is now an expert in making sourdough bread. The only answer I can think of that is relevant to the job is what skills the person has learned that are RELEVANT to the job. In which case…

What could you ask instead to accomplish the same result?

“What is the last thing you learned about technology?” – this is an appropriate question to ask. I’ve asked it before the pandemic. This question doesn’t have assumptions in it about how recently you learned something. It doesn’t suggest something is wrong with you if you haven’t had time or energy during a pandemic to learn something new, you can still list something you learned in 2019.

What would be my answer

It’s hard to answer this hypothetically because it depends on how much one needs the job. Let’s assume I do and decided to answer the question in some form.

Side note: When I was interviewing for entry level jobs, I was asked “how would you handle being treated differently because you are female.” My answer was “why? is that a problem here?” (with some attitude in my tone.) I still got an offer. I declined.

“I finished writing the OCP 11 Practice Tests book with Scott, read some technical books, passed the AWS associate architect exam and served on the planning committee for the first ever JChampions conference.”

What is my honest answer

While my answer is factually true, none of that was what I did with my extra time for several reasons.

  • I would have done those things anyway.
  • I read less books in 2020 than in any of the past years I can remember. (I read tech books during my commute.) Trying to read at home, I get distracted. Most of the tech books I managed to read were when it was warm enough to sit outside.
  • I was unable to do my annual CodeRanch “JForum Day” feature for the first time in 11 years. I really wanted to do this. But I spent the finite amount of energy I had in the winter for coding/thinking on work. It wasn’t available for my extra time. So I objectively did and learned less in 2020 than in a normal year.
  • Studying for and taking the AWS exam was a mistake. I wasn’t able to retain information even in the short term. I cried numerous times trying to force myself to do so. I’ve already forgotten what I ‘learned’ and will have to re-learn it when things are better. I wish I had noticed what was going on earlier and stopped trying.
  • I spent most of my “extra time” trying to be physically and mentally ok.
  • All but one of the people I know who is comfortable physically getting together are two train rides (and over 90 minutes) away. This means it takes pretty much a whole weekend day to have any human interaction.
  • Having video/virtual contact is more tiring than real human contact. So the energy I put into trying to keep myself ok came out of my ability to do other things.

And none of this is bad. I believe expecting people to have learned and accomplished more during a pandemic is inconsiderate. Unless you believe we are going to be under stay at home orders for another year and learning during it is a requirement for your job, ask a different question!

New Zoom self-selecting breakout rooms

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I live the new Zoom feature to be able to switch between breakout rooms. You have to be on the latest zoom and the feature has to be enabled for your meeting.

After clicking breakout rooms at the bottom, you see the choices along with who is in each room. The trick is mousing over the number. If I mouse over “5”, it turns into the word join.

You can join a breakout from either the main room or another breakout. And you can always go back to the main room by clicking “leave breakout room.”

This is far better than my hack of joining as my computer, iPad and iPhone and switching physical devices. It also lets the team know which session I am actually paying attention too!

Scheduling Social Media Posts

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I recently became responsible for managing the NYJavaSig social media. I’ve been using TweetDeck for scheduling Twitter posts. Today I researched scheduling Facebook and Linked In posts. Here’s what I learend

Buffer

Buffer.com was recommended to me. I like it. It is free for up to three channels/connections. There’s a limit on how many posts you can have in the queue at the same time, but it is way higher than I would need.

Once I registered, I immediately dropped the Pro trial so I could see what it would look like for me. Connecting Facebook was pretty easy. I had to sign in with Facebook to connect. It got dropped once and I reconnected. But after that, it seemed happy.

LinkedIn was tricker and I encountered two problems:

  • On the dashboard, there were buttons to connect instagram and twitter. So I though the limit of three social media channels was only those three.
  • I later learned you can click “manage social channels” and get access to your LinkedIn Account or a LinkedIn Page. However, it is not possible to schedule posts into a Group because LinkedIn has disabled that API

HootSuite

I learned about HootSuite from a linked in article about scheduling posts. I had two problems

  • HootSuite wanted permission to see my contacts. Why? This is not needed in order to post on my behalf. I didn’t want to give that.
  • It is no longer possible to schedule posts into a Group anyway because LinkedIn has disabled that API. (Yes the same problem as Buffer.)

Conclusion

I decided to split and use TweetDeck for Twitter and Buffer for Facebook. I may consolidate later. But I might not. I really like TweetDeck for Twitter!