Career Webinars
Get expert guidance on skill building, job search strategies, and more through a free webinar series from the Michigan Alumni Career program.
Join our webinar series to learn about a variety of career topics led by alumni, industry experts, and coaches. Missed a webinar? Check out our archive to watch full recordings of past sessions and Career Bites featuring key takeaways in short clips.
Upcoming Webinars
Unbreakable: How to AI-Proof Your Job Search, Career, and Future
Remember when “learn to code” was the answer to every career question? Now, AI can code better than most humans. And computer science grads face higher unemployment than philosophy majors.
But here’s the truth nobody’s telling you: This wave isn’t about AI replacing you. It’s about AI changing what the world needs from you.
Join former LinkedIn and Khan Academy executive Jeremy Schifeling, MBA ’12, to discover exactly how to become the professional that AI makes more valuable, not less.
You will master:
- The SURF Framework: The four human and AI skills that make you unstoppable, no matter what comes next
- The 20X Playbook: The key human techniques that give you a 2,000% advantage over other job seekers, even in the toughest hiring markets
- The Portfolio Career: The essential strategies that keep your career sustainable — both today and tomorrow
The wave is almost here. Grab your board. Let’s ride.
This event is offered in partnership with the University Career Center, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and the School of Kinesiology.
Jeremy Schifeling has devoted his career to helping others succeed in theirs. From teaching kindergarten in Brooklyn to recruiting top students at Teach For America to leading education marketing at LinkedIn, he’s touched the lives of millions of people at every stage of their journeys. Along the way, he has published best-selling books on using LinkedIn and ChatGPT in the job search, served as a career coach for military veterans at Shift.org and MBA students at the University of Michigan, and produced the most-viewed video in LinkedIn’s history.
Rehearsing the Future: Imagination, Foresight, and the Practice of Thinking Ahead
The future cannot be predicted, but it can be explored, challenged, and rehearsed.
What if being prepared for the future wasn’t about having the right answers, but about strengthening how you think? In environments dominated by short-term pressures, the ability to think beyond the present is emerging as a critical leadership advantage.
Imagination is a fundamental cognitive capability that allows us to generate possibilities beyond what exists today. Yet in fast-paced, and uncertain environments, we rarely make time to develop it. When imagination is underused, we default to reaction, overlook emerging signals, and feel less prepared for what’s ahead. Research consistently shows that while the vast majority of leaders see imagination as critical to future success, only a small minority actively cultivate it in practice.
Strategic foresight provides a way to actively build this capability — combining data, signals, and structured exploration with generative thinking to help individuals rehearse possibilities and shape more intentional outcomes. Organizations that apply these future-focused practices consistently outperform peers in growth, resilience, and innovation.
Led by leading foresight practitioners, this interactive session will engage participants in futures thinking and real-time exploration through approaches like scenarios, provocations, and reflection, creating space to strengthen imagination in action.
Participants will leave with practical approaches to:
- Generate and explore new possibilities
- Greater confidence navigating uncertainty
- New ways to think, decide, and lead beyond the present
Nina Maturu, MBA ’13, MPP ’13
Nina Maturu, MBA ’13, MPP ’13, is an award-winning strategist, futurist, and innovation executive. She was recently a futurist at NASA, where she led the expansion of its strategic foresight practice, leveraging AI and advanced analytics to map emerging technologies and trends through 2075, informing strategic investments in the present. At ARPA-H (DARPA for health), she served as senior advisor to leadership during its founding year, architecting innovation capabilities for the $4 billion agency to help breakthrough health technologies transition from bench to bedside.
Her Fortune 500 experience includes launching American Express’ mobile wallet ecosystem, transforming how millions of customers make payments. Her portfolio also includes launching an international wine category on Amazon, designing transatlantic flight experiences for JetBlue, exploring the future of collaboration at 3M, and creating a 10-year consumer health pipeline at Bayer.
As managing partner at Constellation Design Strategy, Maturu partners with private, public, and nonprofit organizations to implement strategic foresight and human-centered innovation approaches that drive real results and manage uncertainty.
She is a sought-after keynote speaker, engaging audiences globally on the future of human-computer interaction and how to future-proof humanity amid technological transformation.
Maturu shapes the next generation of future-forward thinkers as an adjunct professor at New York University and Parsons School of Design.
She holds an MBA and Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan and bachelor’s degree in history from New York University.
Sabrina Sullivan, MBA ’14, MS ’14
Sabrina Sullivan, MBA ’14, MS ’14, is a corporate foresight practitioner, researcher, and educator with more than 15 years of experience helping organizations and leaders bridge the gap between future possibilities and actionable strategy. She is the founder of by+by foresight and the co-creator of Leaders for Humanity, a leadership tool and game designed to spark bold thinking in times of complexity.
Sullivan has held leadership roles at Deloitte and Foresight Factory and has advised and collaborated with global organizations including Ford Motor Co., TED, and Singularity University. Her global research on foresight practice also led to the development of the Foresight Spectrum, a framework for understanding and communicating how futures work creates value across organizations.
A sought-after speaker, she has presented at global forums including the Dubai Future Forum, with a particular interest in making futures thinking accessible to leaders, learners, and even children.
Sullivan holds an MBA from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and an MS in sustainable systems from the School of Natural Resources and Environment, now the School for Environment and Sustainability, both at the University of Michigan, where she is a proud alumna.
Emotions at Work: Mental Fitness for Career Success
Negative emotions at work are inevitable, but they don’t have to derail your performance or well-being. Many of us default to hiding or ignoring difficult feelings. Without the right tools, this can lead to unintended consequences and missed insights.
Advancing the Human Health and Well-Being impact area of U-M’s Look to Michigan vision, this global virtual panel will explore how mental fitness supports career growth. Ethan Kross, renowned U-M professor, international bestselling author of “Chatter” and “Shift,” and director of the U-M Mental Fitness Institute — a moonshot effort to reduce global suffering — will be joined by career coach Stacy Kim, author of “Envy,” to share practical strategies for managing and using negative emotions more effectively.
Using envy as a case study, they’ll show how emotions can reveal what you want, what to pursue, and who to learn from.
Myths we’ll challenge:
- There are “good” and “bad” emotions.
- Avoidance is always toxic, and venting is always helpful.
- Comparing yourself with others is the problem.
You’ll leave with:
- Concrete tools and exercises to build mental fitness at work.
- Strategies for handling emotional “chatter” and relationship curveballs.
- Greater calm, confidence, and clarity, plus resources to learn more.
Ethan Kross
Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion regulation. An award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, he also serves as the co-founder and executive director of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Mental Fitness, a first-of-its-kind moonshot effort to enhance emotional well-being on a global scale. He is the international bestselling author of “Chatter” and “Shift,” which have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Kross’ work bridges the gap between frontier science and practical application. He has participated in policy discussions at the White House and advises top executives, Fortune 100 organizations, and professional sports teams. His research is regularly featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker, as well as many of the world’s most rigorous scientific journals, including Science and The New England Journal of Medicine. With more than 6.5 million views across his TED and Big Think talks, Kross’ insights have transformed how millions of people manage their emotions. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Stacy Kim, Ph.D.
Stacy Kim, Ph.D., is a social scientist, career coach, and the author of “Envy: Why Wanting What They Have Is the Key to Getting What You Want.” She is the founder of Life Junctions LLC and has more than 15 years of experience helping conscientious high achievers untangle envy and other internal blocks to navigate the complexities of relationships and work and knit together lives they love. She has written for outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Business Insider, and WIRED.
Kim has conducted research on work-family conflict and early childhood education for the Families and Work Institute, Columbia University’s National Center for Children and Families, and The University of Pennsylvania. She began her career at the Leo Burnett Company, conducting advertising research for clients like Hallmark, Nintendo, and Miller.