One conversation at a time: Northeastern’s Silicon Valley speed mentoring event

Most career advice sounds the same from a distance: network more, tailor your resume, practice your pitch. But when that advice comes from someone who sat in your exact seat a few years ago, who remembers the rejection emails and the self-doubt, it lands differently. That was the promise behind Northeastern University’s second annual Speed Mentoring and Networking Event, and with 23 mentors and over 120 students in the room, it delivered.

Led by Associate Co-op Coordinator Erica Hatzievgenakis and Academic Advisor Kimberly Wright from the College of Engineering, the event paired students with industry professionals representing a remarkable breadth of the technology landscape: Google, Samsung, NVIDIA, Meta, ByteDance, Walmart, ServiceNow, TikTok, NetApp, Teladoc Health, and several high-growth startups. Their expertise ranged from AI product management and data science to program management, cloud computing, and business development.

Setting the tone

Silicon Valley campus dean Caroline Simard opened the evening with a reflection on what mentoring really means, and what it demands from both sides of the conversation. As someone who has spent her career studying work and technical talent pathways, she noted that “current students are AI natives, builders with immense curiosity and adaptability. Yet navigating the job search for early career roles is more complex than ever. This is the time to double down on human connection, mentoring, and relationship-building through meaningful networking.”

Mentoring, she reminded the room, is not a one-directional exercise. Mentors don’t simply dispense wisdom; they learn, recalibrate, and grow through the exchange just as much as mentees do.

Tarika Bheda, a seasoned Program and Strategy Leader with experience at VMware and currently in a consulting role for a startup, spoke next. She shared a similar point of view, and reinforced the mutual value of mentoring relationships before students began rotating through the tables.

With that foundation set, the room came alive.

Rethinking how you land the job

As students moved between mentoring tables, several conversations zeroed in on a reality that many job-seekers overlook: the application itself is only one piece of the puzzle.

Sriram Kothandaraman, Product Manager at ServiceNow, challenged the common belief that referrals are the golden ticket. While referrals can help open doors, he argued, “the best approach is to try contacting the hiring manager and pitching yourself as the ideal candidate for the role.” He encouraged direct contact through LinkedIn or other channels. It’s a strategy that demands more effort but signals initiative in a way that a forwarded resume simply cannot.

Deepak Singh, Senior Product Manager at Teladoc Health, reinforced the importance of preparation that starts long before interview season. “Prepare for interviews very early on to gain the language and fluency,” he advised, noting that the same well-crafted narratives can be adapted across different behavioral questions. He also pointed students toward emerging AI tools like Eleven Labs for building practice interview agents, a creative use of technology to sharpen a fundamentally human skill.

Defining your value before you sell it

Several mentors pushed students to think more deeply about positioning before ever submitting an application. Pallavi Bhatt, COO and Co-Founder of iGrow Inc., encouraged students to start with their values: define what matters to you, evaluate career paths through the lens of financial and professional feasibility, and ask honestly whether this is work you could sustain for the long haul.

From there, she advised crafting a clear value statement: not just what you can do, but what you uniquely bring to an organization. “Think of yourself as a luxury product and market accordingly,” she urged, while cautioning against the hard sell at networking events. The goal is connection, not a transaction.

Tarika Bheda offered tactical advice during her mentoring sessions as well. She recommended building a portfolio of diverse projects as concrete evidence of capability: “Do as many projects as possible; it’s concrete evidence that you can do the work,” she advised. She also encouraged considering volunteer roles at startups to expand your network and targeting mid-size to smaller companies where competition may be less fierce. She also reminded students to think long-term, to “focus on developing skills that will remain relevant through 2030 and beyond.”

Preparing for the conversations that matter

For students eyeing product management roles specifically, Pearl Pullan, Product Manager at Samsung Research America, offered a practical roadmap for interview preparation. Product interviews, she explained, typically span behavioral, product sense, design, and root cause analysis rounds. She shared a perennial favorite among interviewers: “What is your favorite product? Tell me three things you like, three things you dislike, and three things you would like to improve about the product?” She also recommended building proficiency with tools like Jira, Figma, SQL, and Tableau, the everyday toolkit of a working product manager.

Across the room, mentors engaged students on topics ranging from LLM applications and AI engineering to stakeholder management, conflict resolution, and personal branding. The breadth of expertise available in a single evening was remarkable, and by design.

A community that shows up

As students moved from table to table, asking thoughtful questions, scribbling notes, and exchanging LinkedIn connections, the energy in the room was unmistakable. This wasn’t a lecture. It was a community in motion.

The mentors who returned to campus that evening did so because they remembered what it felt like to be on the other side of the table. They remembered the uncertainty, the rejected applications, and the moments when a single piece of advice changed everything. By showing up, they closed the loop, transforming their own career lessons into fuel for the next generation.

As Dr. Simard reminded everyone at the start: today’s students represent the future of work, and we are defining it one mentoring conversation at a time. If this evening was any indication, that future is in capable, curious, and remarkably well-connected hands.