Career Advice for MEM Graduates

Arbela Takhsh has a message for all soon-to-be graduates: navigating the job market right now can be complicated.  

"Between the massive shifts brought on by the AI transformation and some uncertainty of the global geopolitical environment, the job market can feel daunting," said Arbela, principal consultant and fractional chief operating officer at AT Scale Ops. "Establishing a career path in this climate is rarely a straight line, especially if you are also managing personal transitions or geographic relocation to find the right opportunity." 

It can be easy to get overwhelmed, Arbela said, but she doesn't want graduates to be intimidated.

"Your real job right now is building and strengthening your value," she said. "Success comes when you focus on what you can actually control." 

Takhsh was a guest speaker in Northwestern's Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program earlier this year. She, along with four other guest speakers from the program, recently shared the most valuable career advice they received and how they think MEM graduates can stand out in the job market. 

What is the most valuable piece of professional advice you've ever received? 

Hamid Ghezavat, principal project/program manager and transformation/delivery lead at Consilium Technologies: The best advice I received early in my career was to focus on the problem before the solution. In technology fields, it is easy to jump straight to tools or platforms, but the real value comes from understanding the business context and the outcomes stakeholders are trying to achieve. 

Eric Rovira Ricard, senior product manager at Motorola Solutions: The most valuable advice I’ve received is to consistently operate at the intersection of impact and clarity. Focus on solving the highest-leverage problems and communicate decisions in a way that aligns diverse stakeholders. In practice, this means prioritizing outcomes over outputs, grounding decisions in data, and ensuring that strategy is both well-reasoned and well-understood across engineering, product, and business teams. 

Takhsh: The most impactful professional advice I ever received was that the greatest barrier to my success was my own self doubt. Building an internal foundation of confidence, especially during the early stages of my career, proved to be a critical turning point. It allowed me to move from being an individual contributor who waited for permission to a leader who took ownership of building solutions. That shift involved intentionally silencing the internal voices that cause hesitation, choosing to see failed attempts as learning opportunities, and recognizing that each challenge only increases one's professional strength. For anyone entering a leadership role, understanding that your belief in your own capability is a prerequisite for others to believe in your vision is essential. 

Ian Wiese (MEM ‘18), independent consultant, co-founder, and chief technology officer with a history in metals manufacturing: The most valuable professional advice I’ve ever received was to “answer the question before it’s asked.” I’ve come to see that as a discipline of anticipation. In technical work, it means building models that already address the obvious pushbacks. In strategy, it means framing ideas in a way that resolves concerns before they surface. And in communication, it means respecting people’s time by getting to the heart of what they actually need—even if they haven’t fully said it yet. In practice, it’s one of the most effective ways I’ve found to create alignment and momentum. When you consistently stay one step ahead of the conversation, you don’t just provide answers—you remove friction from the entire process. 

Tom Zerull, senior compliance director at Amgen: Work hard to support the success of the business and never compromise your integrity while doing so.  

How do you think MEM students can differentiate themselves when applying for jobs? 

Ghezavat: MEM students already bring meaningful professional experience through prior roles and internships. What differentiates them after graduating from the MEM program is their ability to connect that experience with strategic thinking, showing how technical knowledge, business understanding, and communication skills come together to solve real organizational problems. 

Rovira Ricard: MEM students can stand out by demonstrating a rare combination of technical fluency, business acumen, and leadership potential. Beyond academic excellence, this means showing tangible impact—through internships, projects, or research—where they have driven outcomes, not just contributed. Strong candidates articulate how they navigate ambiguity, make data-informed decisions, and influence without authority. Clear communication and the ability to connect technical work to business value are key differentiators. 

Takhsh: The Northwestern MEM advantage is real. You are gaining a massive head start by learning how to look at technology through a business lens. What will make you stand out in a stack of resumes is demonstrating your skills beyond doing the technical work and your readiness to lead the business of engineering. I encourage MEM students to focus on the following and weave these principles into how they present their skills and background when applying for jobs: 

1. Master the language of business:You will differentiate yourself the moment you start connecting technical milestones to things like financial impact, market timing, and strategic goals. Being the person who can bridge the gap between the engineering team and the executive suite is exactly what makes an MEM grad valuable. 
2. Show how you make decisions:Don’t just show that you can solve a problem. Show how you decide which problems are worth solving and how to solve them. Use your background in data-driven analysis and qualitative assessments to demonstrate that you understand how to strategically prioritize in a pragmatic and high impact manner.  
3. Demonstrate strategic integration of AI: At the risk of stating the obvious, you must thoughtfully build AI into your professional toolkit. In a leadership role, the differentiator is not just using AI for personal productivity, but showing that you can evaluate when and where it should be integrated into a broader business strategy. Be prepared to discuss how you have built AI into your project proposals or operational workflows to drive measurable results. This will demonstrate that you are ready to lead in an AI augmented engineering environment. 
4. Focus on clarity and simplification:In leadership, your ability to communicate is just as important as your technical skills. Stand out by showing you can simplify a complex technical mess into a clear plan that anyone can understand. When you can cut through the noise and give a leadership team a solution they can actually act on, you become an indispensable part of the organization. 

Wiese: The MEM students who stand out are the ones who learn how to translate. There are a lot of people who can be “the engineer in the room” or “the business person in the room.” What’s rare—and incredibly valuable—is someone who can sit between those worlds and make them understand each other. That shows up in simple ways: explaining a complex system in plain language, tying a technical decision directly to dollars and risk, or anticipating the questions a non-technical stakeholder is going to ask. The other piece is proof. Not perfection—proof. The students who differentiate themselves are the ones who have actually tried to build, test, or model something real. Even a small project carries more weight than a perfect résumé. If you can demonstrate that you create clarity where others create confusion, you’ll stand out very quickly 

Zerull: Apply unique real world experiences and case studies MEM offers in the classroom, and leverage the peer network of MEM classmates, which represents a tremendous pool of talent across multiple disciplines.