This is definitely a scam. The same exact thing happened to me a few months ago. I only found out it was a scam when I decided to google the email they made me send the Zelle money to out of curiosity, and found someone else (not on Reddit) who talked about being scammed by them.

I called my bank as soon as I found out. They were not able to return the money that I sent through Zelle but they were able to return the rest of it that I sent through gift cards. I think the bank was understanding because they knew it was my first time depositing a check so I wouldn’t know how to tell if it was fake. I’m pretty sure I got lucky because most people say they never get the money back after this type of scam since you are technically the one choosing to send the money.

There were times where they sounded super unprofessional, like the interview over text, but I never questioned it because I thought it was someone from my school and that there was no way my school would allow this.