Career Resources
Career Development Session Wrap-Ups
Session Descriptions, Bios and Resources
The UW Alumni Association is proud to present Career Development Sessions. These interactive workshops bring in experts who do deeper dives into the intersections of career and identity.
The Career Development Sessions are not recorded, in order to encourage open and honest conversations among attendees. The summaries below give an overview of each year’s speakers and topics, as well as useful links for those who would like to continue to explore these themes.
2023 Wrap-Up:
Navigating identity and career as a BIPOC professional
In March 2023, the UW Alumni Association presented a three-session series focused on empowering BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) alumni in their career journeys. Each session featured a different member of a BIPOC community who is an expert in their field. The speakers touched on topics affecting people of color as they navigate the realities of the modern workforce. Real people, real issues, real talk.
Practices of Self-Care & Community Care When Advocating for Institutional Transformation
Speaker: Yejin Lee
The push for racial equity within organizations often comes from the advocacy and labor of people of color. There is often a tension between the urgency of this work, specifically for folks of marginalized identities, and the hurt, harm, exhaustion and isolation that comes as a result of this labor. During this 90-minute workshop, equity & justice facilitator Yejin Lee (she/her) will share her insights on finding strategies to push for institutional change while also centering self-care and community-care as people with marginalized/minoritized identities. She will share her framework on best ways to surface responsive strategies of advocacy that center those who have experienced harm and talk through tips and tools that will help to preserve energy and labor.
Meet Yejin Lee
Leveling Up: How to Advocate for Yourself as a Person of Color in the Workplace
Speaker: Ciera Graham
BIPOC professionals continue to face barriers to entry, retention, and promotion in the workplace, across all fields and levels. People of color report experiencing daily microaggressions, segregation, exclusion and silencing. This can lead to feelings of marginalization, self-doubt and burnout. While our organizations have a lot of work to do to create more inclusive spaces for people of color, we must also learn the politics of the game and how to assert ourselves. This interactive workshop will affirm the narratives and experiences of people of color in the workplace and offer concrete and tangible strategies to advocate for yourself in your place of work to improve your confidence, leadership skills and job satisfaction. Participants will build community with other like-minded BIPOC professionals and walk away with a self-advocacy tool kit. Participants will also have the opportunity to practice and work through common scenarios in groups. While this workshop is geared to employees at all levels, it will be most relevant to those who are recent college graduates and entry- to mid-level professionals.
Meet Ciera Graham
Not Just Another DEI Course: Navigating Workplace DEI for BIPOC
Speaker: Andrea Ramirez
When it comes to the workplace, BIPOC communities have historically experienced significant barriers. In the current evolving workplace, that lack of diversity remains. This workshop explores strategies for BIPOC professionals to navigate supporting and doing DEI work in organizations. It will share ideas, advice, and tools to create boundaries, take action, rest, and determine your needs in your work life.
Meet Andrea Ramirez
2021 Wrap-Up:
Navigating identity and career as a BIPOC professional
In February 2021, UW Alumni Association and Othello-UW Commons collaborated on a four-session event focused on empowering BIPOC alumni in their career journeys. Each session featured a different BIPOC expert in their field who touched on topics affecting people of color as they navigate the realities of the modern workforce. Real people, real issues, real talk.
“The Only”
Speaker: Aiko Bethea
What does advancing in leadership look like for BIPOC professionals? How do you thrive in a work environment where you feel like “The Only” in a room? Executive coach and world-renowned speaker Aiko Bethea shared how she has successfully navigated leadership roles as a woman of color and how to carve your own path as a leader. This session included a moderated Q&A.
About Aiko Bethea: Aiko Bethea is a leader, builder, and connector. Known by many for her collaborations with Brené Brown, she successfully navigated leadership roles in government, philanthropic and corporate sectors including Fred Hutch and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In each sector, she created and served in inaugural roles to meet growing organizational needs and visions for evolving. Aiko is principal and founder of RARE Coaching & Consulting, a consulting practice focused on coaching leaders and organizations to remove barriers to inclusion.
Connect with Aiko Bethea on LinkedIn.
Check out her Medium article, “My Letter of Love and Care to The Onlys: 5 Practices and Beliefs that Keep Me Centered in Self-Love.”
You can also listen to Aiko’s appearance on Brené Brown’s podcast:
Part 1 — The Heart of Hard Conversations
Part 2 — Creating Transformative Cultures
Storytelling as a Career Asset
Speaker: Sylvia Artiga Monreal
The most dreaded and predictable part of the job interview is when you hear, “Tell me about yourself.” But what if you had a clear idea of how to share your strengths, identity, and potential? Storytelling is how we make sense of the world, and narrative intelligence is the ability to leverage the psychological power of story to change behavior and inspire action. This workshop discussed storytelling as a key tool to your career journey and provide a framework for developing your own professional narrative. 
About Sylvia Artiga Monreal: Sylvia Artiga Monreal (she/her) is a mestiza nerd, L&D professional, and career coach. She created Skilltree Coaching to fulfill her dream of supporting emerging leaders from underrepresented backgrounds. In her spare time, she curates ¿Cómo Se Dice Nerd?, an online space dedicated to celebrating Latinx nerds and our contributions to art, music, and pop culture.
Connect with Sylvia Artiga Monreal on LinkedIn.
Demystifying DEI Recruiting
Speakers: Ebonee Anderson and William Wiggins
Attendees got an insider’s perspective from a panel of human resources leaders on how to best navigate the hiring and recruitment processes as BIPOC job seekers. Speakers shared helpful hints on how to spot companies that offer holistic hiring practices and industry terminology to add to your vocabulary as you search for your perfect fit, with the goal of finding an employer that does more than talk the talk when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.
About Ebonee Anderson: Ebonee Anderson is the University of Washington’s DEI Recruiting Consultant. She believes effective diversity recruiting relies on minimizing barriers in hiring and ensuring an inclusive and equitable selection process. At the UW, she helps design, develop and implement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) focused recruiting and sourcing strategies and programs. She develops candidate screening tools, builds partnerships and uses her background in full-cycle recruiting as a lens for increasing diversity and inclusion to not only attract and hire diverse talent but also to retain, develop, engage and advance employees.
Connect with Ebonee Anderson on LinkedIn.
About William Wiggins: William Wiggins is a human resources leader with a passion for providing practical, results-oriented, “workforce focused” support to organizations, employees, and their internal management teams. He brings a broad range of experience including Employee Benefits, Compliance, Talent Acquisition and Talent Management, and leading strategic Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives. “I have demonstrated history of promoting leadership development, and leading targeted initiatives towards creating a sustainably multiculturally engaging productive working experience for the organizations I serve.”
Connect with William Wiggins on LinkedIn.
Check out his article, “What You Won’t Hear at the Diversity Task Force Meeting.”
Self-Preservation in the Workplace
Speaker: Jodi-Ann Burey
Self-care isn’t all massages and cucumber water. This webinar confronted the real cultural challenges facing BIPOC professionals, while providing useful strategies to balance workplace experiences and authentic self.
About Jodi-Ann Burey: Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) has a mission to disrupt “business as usual” to achieve social change. Her work centers the experiences of historically underrepresented communities and is grounded in the systemic intersectional approaches needed to address inequities. A true multi-hyphenate, Jodi-Ann is a speaker, writer, conversation curator, entrepreneur and educator. She is also the creator and host of Black Cancer, a podcast about the cancer narratives of everyday people of color, which was recently featured on POPSUGAR and NBC – Dallas. Jodi-Ann is also an affiliate instructor at the University of Washington’s Communication Leadership graduate program. See her talk on why you shouldn’t bring your authentic self to work on TEDx.
Visit Jodi-Ann Burey’s website.
Watch her TEDx Talk, “The myth of bringing your full, authentic self to work.”
2021 sessions presented in partnership with:
