Tomorrow, I’ve got a virtual interview for a full-time position, and I’m looking forward to it. While I have had a couple of virtual interviews thus far, they have all been pretty basic, behavioral interviews. Tomorrow, I’ve been asked to bring a couple of sheets of paper and a pen to my interview, which I’ve inferred means that I’ll be answering some technical questions along with the typical regular questions you’d see during a first-round interview.

I’m excited for the technical portion of this interview because I feel that it’s a really good way for me to differentiate myself from the rest of the candidates for the position. I’ve spent a lot of time since coming to Penn State on sharpening my technical understanding of fundamental concepts just for these types of situations. Especially for full-time engineering roles, many recruiters are seeking well-rounded individuals with plenty of impactful contributions from a leadership and soft-skills side, but at the end of the day, technical aptitude and the ability to apply core concepts from your education is critical. Companies want recent graduates who can take the next step by producing high-impact, well-thought out solutions to critical problems. This exact need is what pushed me to be an engineer, especially one looking for positions at healthcare companies. To be able to work on a team which is creating innovative products to make healthcare simpler and better for consumers everywhere is my end goal, and I think having technical interview experience will better contextualize how important some of the concepts I’ve learned in my courses actually are.

In person, technical interviews typically involve doing some calculations on a whiteboard, putting together a small contraption, or answering some conceptual questions about a piece of a product that a company is building. Going all virtual is definitely changing the game a bit. I’ve been asked to bring a few pieces of paper and pen, as I mentioned earlier, which means they could be asking me to potentially solve equations or drawing schematics for a particular process. I’ve been doing some basic prep to get ready for the types of questions, but frankly I’m more excited about the opportunity to learn from this experience more than anything. I’m going to do my best to show my thought process as I work through the problems, they give me. I’m hoping my experience with engineering at Penn State will help me successful during this interview!