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First off, congratulations on getting an offer and joining the team! Secondly, it’s very cool of you to take some time to share your experience of the interview process with others who may follow in your footsteps. We love to see that!
I’m glad to hear your interview process was a good one, in particular I’m happy to hear you enjoyed the Life Story interview and that you saw that the interviewer was genuinely interested in understanding who you were. It’s actually a common misunderstanding that the Life Story is designed to just assess ‘culture fit’ or that’s it’s a time when you should just ‘sell yourself’.
The truth is that with the Life Story interview we’re actually trying to get to know the ‘real’ you to see if you possess those qualities that typically lead to long-term success here at Shopify. One of the key qualities we look for is a person's ability to be authentic in their interactions. We’re not likely to move forward with people if they’re only focused on selling themselves rather than just being real with us. It is also important to note that the Life Story interview is intentionally designed to support a diverse set of candidates so that not just those extroverts who might authentically like to ‘sell themselves’ succeed. In summary - show us your genuine self in the Life Story interview and trust the Talent Acquisition team to do the rest!
To get the low-down on the Life Story and what we’re looking for, I recommend people check out an article here on Glassdoor called “How Shopify Scales Their Team to Hire for Culture Add”.
It offers some great insight into our process so check it out when you have the time. For now I’ll say welcome aboard, and thanks so much for sharing your experience with all the good people we’re hoping to hire!