newgrad_neil · 3 replies
i'm a 2025 grad applying to a junior eng role at Shopify and i've read that their behavioral/values round is pretty intense. i don't have a ton of work experience, most of my stories are from internships and school projects. is that going to be a problem?
also do they care about merchant/ecommerce experience specifically, or is that just a nice to have? i've never worked in commerce but i use Shopify to sell stuff as a hobby which feels embarrassingly small to mention.
for a junior role, internship and project stories are completely fine. they know what a new grad resume looks like. what they're testing is whether you can reflect clearly on what happened, own mistakes, and reason about tradeoffs. that doesn't require 5 years of experience, it requires self-awareness.
the hobby store is worth mentioning, seriously. merchant empathy is a real thing at Shopify and 'i actually run a small store' is more signal than 'i find commerce interesting as a market'.
okay that's actually reassuring about the store thing, i was going to leave it out entirely. will use it.
i had the same worry about thin experience when i was returning after a gap. for Shopify specifically, what they seem to want is genuine curiosity and evidence you can handle uncertainty. school projects can absolutely show that if you pick the right story.