There is a version of that weekend where you collect tote bags and a stack of business cards, and a version where you arrive knowing which employers are in the building, where they are standing, which ones are interviewing on-site, and exactly what you plan to say. Three sessions in September decide which one you get.
Three virtual sessions in the three weeks leading into the 2026 NBMBAA Annual Conference & Exposition in Los Angeles, covering professional positioning, interviewing in an AI-enabled job market, and how to navigate the Conference and Career Expo strategically. The series lands the week before the doors open, so you can put it straight to work.
Register free on ZoomRésumé prep, elevator pitches and your professional presence
Résumé fundamentals and how to tailor one for a specific opportunity. Answering "tell me about yourself" without flailing. LinkedIn, portfolio links and how your online presence reinforces the story you are telling. Plus how to research the employers who will be in the room.
Led by Anthony WilliamsInterviewing in the age of AI
How candidate evaluation is actually changing, and how to use AI well in your own preparation: researching organizations, reading a job description properly, anticipating questions, practicing answers. Behavioral interviewing and the STAR framework. Then a recruiter tells you what stands out, what they wish candidates asked, and what turns a first conversation into a second one.
Led by Tierra Wilson, with a corporate partner recruiterAn insider's guide to the Conference & Career Expo
One week out. The Career Expo floor plan, which companies are participating and where they will be standing, and how to move through the floor efficiently. A corporate partner explains how their team approaches Conference recruiting from the other side of the booth. You leave with a target employer list, a secondary list, networking goals and a follow-up plan.
Led by Tabitha Jenkins and Dr. Tan Morales, with a corporate partnerBoth come with the series, at no cost. This is the part that separates the people who leave Los Angeles with momentum from the people who leave with a tote bag.
Session three previews the Career Expo floor plan, and the toolkit carries the full exhibitor directory with booth numbers, flagged for the employers who also hold Interview Hall booths. Most attendees work out the layout while walking it. You will have decided your route the night before.
Nearly every candidate lets the weekend cool for a week. The Conference Career Toolkit, handed out at session three, exists so you do not: everything you need to convert conversations into interviews while the recruiter still remembers your face.
Any school, any program, undergraduate or graduate — if your school issued you an email address, you qualify. That is the full price of admission to the 2026 Annual Conference & Exposition in Los Angeles — the career expo, the sessions, all of it — and it is a fraction of standard registration.
Register at nbmbaa.org/conference/registration and enter the code with your student email. Then come to the prep series so you walk in ready.
I started my HR career as a career counselor at Georgia State. I spent fourteen years inside Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies running the systems that decide who gets hired and who rises. Today I serve as Chief Learning & Strategy Officer of the National Black MBA Association, and I close this series out on September 16. When I tell you what the room is looking for, I am not guessing. I have been the room.
The sessions are the start. If you want more, it comes in student-friendly formats at student-friendly prices: group programs, not executive retainers.
Small-group coaching for the "I don't know what I actually want" season. Name it, own it, and build a search that matches, before you spend two years finding out the hard way.
Mock interviews and story-crafting with someone who has sat on the hiring side of the table many times. Your answers, pressure-tested before they count.
LinkedIn, positioning, and how you show up in the room: the composed arrival, taught deliberately instead of learned expensively.
Group cohorts open after the conference. Register for the series above and you will be the first to hear, or start with the Flourishing Snapshot, three minutes that tell you where to begin.
Let's make sure you love your answer, and that you know exactly which booth you're saying it at. Session one is September 2.
Register free on ZoomAnd if you have a student email, Conference itself is $99 with code 4WZP67W7 at nbmbaa.org/conference/registration.