The Career Development Conference (CDC) is Youth Solutions’ annual event where youth have the opportunity to showcase the skills they have learned throughout the year in the Jobs for Michigan’s Graduates (JMG) program. This event highlights workplace skills and knowledge, such as creative problem solving, interview skills, and career preparation. Career-based competitions provide students real-world practice for future employment opportunities while volunteer judges evaluate and offer feedback to our future leaders. Moreover, inspirational speeches and student recognition allow our young people to envision and aspire towards their future careers.
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2022 Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Joe Johnson
As a highly regarded international speaker, Dr. Joe Johnson is known for helping people unleash their purpose. With a PhD in Counselor Education, common sense, and street sense; Dr. Joe’s versatility has allowed him to gain over 20 years of experience in transformation work. He’s worked in and with the K-12 school system, higher education institutions, like the University of Michigan and UCLA, fortune 500 companies, and helped many individuals rediscover their true selves and unleash their purpose. We look forward to Dr. Joe addressing our youth and helping them to Think, Act, and Live with purpose and intention.
2022 Youth of the Year Winners
2022 Competitive Event Winners
2022 First Place Chapter Marketing Winners
Congratulations to our 2022 Chapter Marketing winners! Their passion for JMG truly showed through their talent and creativity. Watch the 1st place video, “Our Voices, Our Choices” submitted by our youth from Bridge Academy of Southwest Michigan!
Thank You to our Volunteers!
About our Volunteers: Volunteers made a difference by being guest judges for our employability skills competitions. They were asked to evaluate our young people with a structured evaluation sheet, provide feedback to the students, and select event winners.
Event Descriptions:
Creative Problem Solving: Think Shark Tank! Creative Problem Solving provided youth the opportunity to analyze the decision-making process and work as a team to develop a strategy for a real world challenge that many youth in Michigan may experience today.
Interview Skills: Youth competed in interviews for their desired career and were judged on response content, poise, personal presentation, and networking abilities. Each youth presented a cover letter and resume for his or her dream job. Sample questions were provided to judges.
Career Preparation: This event aims to inspire JMG youth to be proactive in a selected career field and gain confidence in speaking about why the career is the right fit for them. Youth created a 10-item slide deck to present to the judges.
Thank you for your ongoing support of Youth Solutions and Jobs for Michigan’s Graduates programming and for working with us to inspire and connect youth to achieve a future beyond imagination.
Thank You to Our Event Sponsors
