As a growing hardware and software development firm, Punch Through Design has consecutively hired interns since 2015, but now, says Hiring Coordinator Erin Moore, they’re ramping things up!
“We love giving college students a look into what real-life business is like within an engineering company,” Moore said. “We’ve had a lot of success hiring our interns after they graduate and it’s been so successful that we want to keep this going.’”
With a more active approach to recruiting, several of the interns Punch Through hired this year were headhunted, both on Handshake and through the SciTech Internship Program, which came as a pleasant -if not shocking- surprise for the students involved.
“They reached out to me,” recalled Rebecca Chu, a computer science major from the University of Minnesota. “I had some self-doubt about it, I think a lot of people do, and I even said ‘no’ to the interview the day of. But when I told my friend, she was like, ‘why would you do that?’ So I went back and said ‘yes.’ And when I showed up, I actually knew more than I thought.”
“They reached out to me also,” added Adam Heier, a computer engineering major and computer science minor at the University of St. Thomas. Heier already had some internship experience under his belt, but one thing that made this opportunity stand out, was the company’s approach to recruiting.
Removing stress while assessing ability
“I liked how Punch Through’s first step in the interview process was a phone interview and code review, with an engineer and Erin on the call,” said Heier. It was more personal, he recalled, and more directly relevant to the work he’d be doing.
Having hired interns for almost ten years, Punch Through has found a lot of value in incorporating the code review with peers into their interview process.
“We want candidates to feel comfortable and bring in that more human-to-human connection,” Moore explained. “We’re also trying to gauge where their skills are at because, obviously, we bring interns on so they can learn. With the code review, we’re trying to understand what level they’re at, so we know how to prepare and bring them on to projects.”
Another big part of Punch Through’s screening process involves identifying enthusiasm, explained Engineering Manager Aaron Bauernfeind.
“We’re looking for a drive for individual curiosity. The things we’re quizzing them on, aren’t necessarily taught in school. So, what we’re looking for is: do they have a hunger to learn and the ability to be curious, where even if they don’t know how to do something, they’re going to go off on their own to understand it.”
Student Tip: How to Showcase your Curiosity: list your relevant interests in your resume, LinkedIn or SciTech profile. When you don’t have previous work experience, highlight how you pursue this subject independently. Ex: extracurriculars, clubs, student organizations, hobbies etc.
Learning something new
Although all four of the students hired this year had software development internships, the projects they each worked on covered a wide range of tasks.
“We’ve been adding departments and building out more of our mobile side and cloud side,” Moore explained. As such, Chu was Punch Through’s first cloud engineering intern, and helped build and test what exactly that internship experience looked like.
“The cloud team is pretty small,” Chu said, “one is my buddy and the other is my mentor. He’s a cloud architect and knows a lot about it, so I’m excited to work more with him and learn everything I can.”
Electrical and Computer Engineering Major Esperanza Corral worked as an embedded engineering intern, specializing in medical hardware.
“I get to work with both software and hardware, which is what I like,” said Corral. “I think seeing your code actually affect something tangible is really interesting.”
Computer Science Major Ronan Magnus focused on the Android side of app development, delving into UI and Bluetooth. His project required him to work with a coding language he wasn’t familiar with, but by building off what he knew from coding in Java, Magnus was able to translate the skills he did have to develop something new.
“One thing I learned was when you’re learning one language, there’s a large amount of diversity it can branch out to,” Magnus said. “My school experience with Java set me up to work in similar languages.”
Computer Science Major Aidan Roessler came to his internship with previous experience in web development and, similar to Magnus’ experience, built off what he knew from that to tackle something new -in his case shifting to the user interface side.
“I was initially a little scared, thinking this was a completely different world. But I’ve learned that what I know from school and previous internships, the same best practices still translate, it’s just the code looks a little different.”
Try everything!
“A cool thing about Punch Through,” Moore said, “is you tangentially have the ability to learn other aspects if you’re curious. We don’t box people in.”
Bauernfeind added how their “try something new” method expands beyond just the technical side. While on the job, Punch Through interns are exposed to agile, project management and they get to see how a team affectively communicates and collaborates, helping them develop their professional soft skills as well.
“I came to this wanting to experiment,” said Corral. “This is my first industry internship, so it’s definitely given me a good look into what actually happens. It’s been such a positive experience so far.”
“I absolutely feel that I’m on the right path,” Magnus agreed. “My dream is to be in the medical industry, and Punch Through mostly works with medical. The company is so supportive and the industry is exactly what I want.”
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