[organsnyder]

Shopify calls its first interview the "life story" interview, and (in my experience) it was a great place for me to talk about my career, reflect on past successes and mistakes, and demonstrate empathy and self-awareness.

[annexrichmond]

I did that interview. Borderline illegal. My life story I consider pretty personal and was so was a pretty uncomfortable interview.

[organsnyder]

I didn't feel compelled to share anything I didn't want to share. I really felt free to frame it in a way that I was comfortable with. It's as much a "career story" as a "life story", IIRC.

[the_only_law]

My “career story” is already nice and curated for you. It’s called a resume.

[dopamean]

A list of things is not a story.

[diordiderot]

Seems like they let's candidates filter themselves. Win win

[the_only_law]

No shit. Every company “lets” candidates filter themselves

[s1artibartfast]

Maybe that attitude is one of the things it is good at screening for?

[annexrichmond]

That’s a bit presumptuous. I was enthusiastic about the interview until afterwards

The interview was conducted by the recruiter and while she didn’t flat out ask personal questions, she asked questions that would almost cause me to reveal personal information such as my marital status and sexuality. It was not fun coming with made up responses to avoid that because it’s none of her business.

There’s a reason interviews should stay professional. I’m surprised they haven’t been sued.

[s1artibartfast]

Sorry if my comment came off at an personal attack, that wasn't the intent.

With that said, there are lots of reasons why a company might want to vet candidate attitude besides discriminating based on protected characteristics.

Out of curiosity, what kind of questions did you find invasive or discriminatory?

[annexrichmond]

So it wasn't the questions themselves, but when you start asking about why you moved from this city to that, or why did you choose this school, etc. Maybe it's because your SO got a job there, or some other personal reason.

I get that it's totally an innocent intent, but there are much better ways to assess a candidate's soft skills, that is strictly related to their professional experience.

[s1artibartfast]

Okay, my Original Point was that maybe one of the soft skills the test is assessing is the ability and willingness to share their personal self in a positive and constructive manner.

Many if not most people find us a desirable attribute in coworkers and workplaces. I get that it's not for everyone, but not every workplace is a good fit for everyone.

I think you're getting some rude comments because of exactly this fact

[sangnoir]

You can say the wonderfully vague "my partner" if you don't want to reveal your marital status and sexual orientation

[umeshunni]

Uh. I hope this was for a non-technical role. Otherwise, it sounds like a bad idea and best and a torturous thing that filters out a lot of non-native, non-extroverted people.

But then again, that's probably why the environment seems 'fun'

[amrocha]

Being able to communicate empathetically with your coworkers is a core competency for technical workers too. There's a difference between an introvert and an asshole.

[projectazorian]

Asking people to tell their "life story" in a job interview seems like a sign of boundary issues, not empathy. An empathetic person would realize that people come to job interviews expecting to talk about their professional experience, so it isn't the appropriate environment to ask such an invasive question.

[amrocha]

You choose what to talk about and what to share. It's open ended to give you the ability to share as much as you're comfortable with. You can tell the story of your career, no need to get any more personal unless you want to.

[waboremo]

You've interviewed at places that didn't require you to talk about yourself?

Just because Shopify might name it something specific, doesn't mean it's all that unique. Some companies hold this potion entirely on a first/second phone call, others might having an initial section of the interview dedicated to talking about yourself and your experience.

Not sure how this weeds out non-native or non-extroverted people, both of whom are very capable of talking about their experiences. It would be great if you wouldn't infantilize them.

[projectazorian]

This is a strawman. Nobody is saying that people should not have to talk about themselves in job interviews. What people are saying is that "tell me your life story" comes off as creepy and invasive in a professional context where the parties don't know one another.

[shakesbeard]

Huh? I'm an introvert and I can communicate and actually like interacting with people. But I'll need time for myself to re-charge afterwards. But everyone needs to re-charge somehow.

[drowsspa]

What a nightmare.

[motoxpro]

That's really really cool.

[symlinkk]

So only people who have slick enough social skills to bullshit their way through that will get hired. The quiet unassuming engineer who spend their free time programming will get passed on and the extroverted engineer who spent their free time partying will get hired.

[jross225]

Lol, no.

1. That is a very deterministic statement 2. This is a part of the process, not the entire process. There are still technical elements tested during the interview. 3. The signal that they are looking for, but do not tell candidates, is a story about overcoming obstacles.

What I will say about the lifestory, is that it aligns with the skillset required to do well in a corporate environment. Namely telling stories, being relatively interesting, and having some ability to sell yourself and your accomplishments (in addition to being technically competent which is tested elsewhere).

[symlinkk]

“Yeah, we see here that you developed your own machine learning framework in your free time. That’s great and all, but jross225 didn’t find you interesting enough, so we’re going to have to pass, sorry.”

[amrocha]

If you developed an ML framework in your free time and can't tell a compelling story about it in 45 minutes then I probably don't want to work with you either

[the_only_law]

As if “corporate environment” and “interesting people” are remotely compatible.

[Eumenes]

Yeah sounds like a BS "Values" interview ... hard pass

[drowsspa]

For all I know, "culture fit" means "personality clones". HR seems to love that.