I had been preparing for this moment for weeks. After countless hours studying SIEM tools, malware analysis, and incident response procedures, I finally landed an interview for a SOC Analyst (Security Operations Center) role at a growing tech company. The first round was a phone screening with the recruiter, Sarah. She asked me about my background, my experience with cybersecurity tools, and why I wanted to join their team. I spoke about my passion for cybersecurity, my internship experience monitoring security alerts, and how I once helped contain a phishing attack at my university’s IT department. A few days later, I was invited to a technical interview with the hiring manager, Alex. The moment the call started, I knew this was the real test.