401–410 of 531 posts
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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.
My “career story” is already nice and curated for you. It’s called a resume.
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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.
I did that interview. Borderline illegal. My life story I consider pretty personal and was so was a pretty uncomfortable interview.
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This looks worse out of context. The next sentence is pretty clear on what's going on. There are a number of consequences to this, and I don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics; this means some of you will leave Shopify today
> Shopify will be smaller by about 20% So are they going to fire 20% of the C-suite and upper management as well? :)
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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.
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'
"We are changing the shape of Shopify significantly today to pay unshared attention to our mission." What a way to lead, and what an absolutely grotesque euphemism (not to mention a barbaricly tortuous use of English). Why do companies write like this? It's just awful. I'm only half-joking when I suggest that if they'd taken this text and asked GPT-4 to rewrite it in a compassionate tone they'd have got a better resu…
> Why do companies write like this? It's just awful. You aren't the audience, that's why.
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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 sto…
“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.”
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From a business perspective, this is great for Shopify. The labor market for software engineers has seriously softened as a result of all the layoffs. Go look at job openings and their posted salaries. When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price. Also, this is largely a coordinated effort from activist investors specifically targeting large tech salaries. E.g.…
Capitalism is untenable and I say that with frustration as someone who was able to do better after growing up lower-middle class (kinda poor). AI is already displacing some people from their work. I hate both absolute capitalism and socialism/communism. How can AI help us find a sweet spot?
But what is going away, permanently, is the space between extremes. Pour one out. I miss it already.
"We are changing the shape of Shopify significantly today to pay unshared attention to our mission." What a way to lead, and what an absolutely grotesque euphemism (not to mention a barbaricly tortuous use of English). Why do companies write like this? It's just awful. I'm only half-joking when I suggest that if they'd taken this text and asked GPT-4 to rewrite it in a compassionate tone they'd have got a better resu…
> to pay unshared attention to our mission
...unshared attention?
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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.
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'
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.