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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Even if the candidate doesn't have a horrific childhood, the question is totally inappropriate and irrelevant. Like "get up and walk out of the interview" inappropriate.

This, and the general level of mysticism throughout (really? "Spike potential" WTF), causes me to dismiss the whole article.

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Shopify's made the Life Story a major part of their interview process for over a decade now, it doesn't as if they'd ever had problems attracting talent. [1] I think you might be in the minority if you feel that highlights from someone's past are irrelevant predictors in their future performance and that asking about them in an interview is inappropriate.

Personally, I'm really glad I didn't "get up and walk out of the interview" when they asked me to talk about my youth, it ended up being one of my favorite internships and helped position me towards a career in big tech :)

[1] https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/interview-candidate

"At Shopify, all candidates begin the interview process with something called the Life Story, an interview in which the candidate sits down and discusses their work history, passions, and aspirations."

None of that sounds like the actual stories about childhood. It's totally appropriate to discuss past work experiences, aspirations and passions as a "Life Story".

Moreover the “Tell me a little about yourself” suggested interview opener is open-eded enough that the candidate can decide what they want to discuss and highlight. Majority of people do not answer that question with "my first memory was when father left when I was 3 years old..."

Oh, but you just rely on your 'intuition' when interviewing. I'm sure that'll lead to no bias.

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