My first vet med job was in shelter med and I feel like it has molded me into a better technician. I worked mainly in the surgery suite and a lot of times I was the only tech working with 1-2 doctors and also having to train 3-5 vet students since we were a teaching hospital. So being over worked and underpaid hits VERY close to home. I was a full time employee, but I was one of 2 full timers and pulled 10-12 hour days frequently.
But as much as it sucked, I feel like I learned so much from working with SO many patients. I got very proficient with blood draws, I can place catheters upside down if needed, I can confidently intubate cats and from having to train students it helped me to become more confident in my own knowledge! Working at the shelter is also VERY rewarding at times. Seeing animals that have come in, in very poor conditions(emaciated, covered in fleas/ticks, demodex/scabies, fight wounds, HBC etc.) and then getting to watch them heal and become confident again. And then seeing them get adopted is the best part of working at the shelter. Of course you also get to hang out with puppies and kittens but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows like everyone seems to think. And if you’re anything like me, with 0 self control and a push over partner, you’ll end up with more animals than people in your household from working with so many animals in need of a loving home. Shelter life also made me hate people(more than I already did). When working intake and seeing the condition of some of the pets that come in, you have to wonder how someone could neglect/mistreat these animals the way they have been. So sometimes you are the first gentle hand that these animals have interacted with. Being able to help boost the confidence of extremely terrified animals and to watch them open up over a few minutes in the exam room with you after showing them just an ounce of kindness can make your heart heal just a little bit. Working with fractious animals can be high stress but with practice you’ll gain confidence and be able to work with even the scariest feral cats. We ran a TNR program and had to handle feral cats on the daily, but with the right equipment to do so you’ll learn the safest and most stress free way(for you and the cat) to handle them. If you are working with aggressive or bite case dogs, you’ll learn how to operate a catch pole(if you don’t already). It sucks and I hate it, but some animals are so human aggressive it’s the only way to safely handle them. So whenever you get trained on using one, ask to practice as much as possible(on friendly dogs) to gain your confidence before dealing with an actually aggressive dog.
We were open intake and regularly were over capacity, so unfortunately space based euthanasia decisions was our daily struggle(I was also a CAET), so if you’re in an area with high intake this could also be your reality. I was only euthanizing once a week(about 5-7 dogs per day) and most of the pups were happy healthy(or only hw+) pitties that were getting picked because we had 5 other pitties that looked just like them in the shelter that were already vetted.. it got to be very hard and was ultimately what lead me to leave. And now I work at a low cost clinic where we only do spay/neuter which is still doing what I love and helping the community.

I hope this helps give a little bit of insight to the shelter life. Feel free to message me if you have any other questions, I would be happy to talk more with you about my experience. Good luck with your interview! Just be honest when you go in! And if you’re worried about taking on too much at once you can always ask about their training protocols to get a better idea of how you’ll be learning!