As a college student, preparing for your future and establishing your career can be overwhelming, especially in today’s competitive market. It’s important to plan and prepare throughout your college experience so that you’ll be ready to go by graduation!

To help in your preparation, we asked three hiring managers to share their advice for students interested in internship or entry level positions at CONMED. We spoke to Malav M., Quality Assurance Manager; Joseph A., Senior R&D Engineering Manager; and Will T., Marketing Director, Acess and Instruments. In this three-part blog series, we tackle three common questions college students have:

What do you look for in an intern and/or entry level candidate?
How can an intern or entry level candidate make a great first impression during an interview?
What are some ways that college students can prepare for their future careers while still in college?

There are certain attributes that hiring managers search for in potential candidates. In Part 1 of this blog series, we will learn what qualities matter the most to employers and what steps you can take to develop them. Check out what they have to say when they share advice on what they look for in an intern or entry level candidate!

Part 1: What CONMED Managers Look for in an Intern or Entry Level Candidate

CONMED Managers look for an abundance of different traits in candidates, generally, a candidate should have a strong work ethic and an eagerness towards the position. Regarding internships specifically, passion is mentioned by both Malav and Will, they must know you are passionate about the position.

Current skills and coachability are other sets of traits that are highly sought after by hiring managers. For a role in R&D Engineering, Joseph looks deeply at past opportunities candidates have had, and what they have accomplished with such opportunities. Joseph told us “Did you make the most of your opportunities?”, “How many projects did you get done?”, “How complex were the projects?”. It is important to give these questions some thought on how you would display them in your resume and your interview.

CONMED is a complex business that is fast-paced and involves a lot of on-the-job training and interactions with a diverse group of people. If an intern or entry-level candidate is genuinely excited to learn, ready to get hands on with any opportunity presented to them and displays authenticity and honesty in all that they do, they have a greater chance of impressing CONMED hiring managers.

FOUR ways you can develop these traits:

Take on a challenging class or project that requires you to learn something new on the fly. This could be something extra-challenging in your area of study, or something unrelated that’s interesting to you.
Ask a professor for an extra credit assignment or research opportunity that requires you to go above and beyond with applying what you’re learning in class.
Take on a leadership position in a club or at your workplace. For example, lead recruiting efforts for a club, or take on the responsibility of training new hires at work
Build up your self-awareness by reflecting on your experiences and thinking about what you like and don’t like to do. You could do this by keeping a career journal or speaking with an Academic or Career Advisor at your school.

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