With the impact of federal job cuts and climbing unemployment rates in Maryland, the director of the Career and Internship Center at The University of Baltimore decided students needed more focused job search support.
“We decided to design and implement a job search clinic to support students who are looking for work in this competitive job market,” Lakeisha Mathews, center director, said.
“With many companies laying off employees and the turmoil taking place in the federal government, the labor market is flooded with both entry level and experienced professionals making job searching a very competitive process this year.”
Mathews designed the four-week job search clinic with two goals in mind: one, provide a support community for students looking for work, and two, provide a step-by-step process for conducting an effective job search.
The four sessions, offered in a hybrid format to meet students where they are, covered job targeting, job searching, professional branding and interviewing for success. The career center’s professional staff, including Mathews, Lana Farley and La-Toya Gomez, took turns hosting each session, adding their own advice and experiences.
Maya Bennett, a B.A. in Digital Communication student specializing in digital theory and culture, attended the workshops to learn how to polish her resume and better prepare herself when she’s searching for a summer internship.
“The resume and LinkedIn tips helped me out the most,” she said. “They mentioned that each action item under a role on your resume needs to include some type of result. If I said I maintained the organization of the store, I should also include that it increased customer satisfaction. It makes the actions seem stronger.”
Mathews encouraged students to consider their professional goals and consider multiple titles that align with their skills and experiences. With about one job for every job seeker, it’s an employer’s market, but they can empower themselves by opening their mind to more opportunities, she advised.
“People who graduate during times of economic turmoil have to be ready to pivot,” she said. “In a difficult economy, having a Plan B is always a good thing.”
Bennett appreciated this advice from Lakeisha: “A lot of jobs are ‘hidden’ because they aren't always titled what we expect,” she said.
When Joy Davis-Taylor completed her B.A. in History in 2007, the country was on the brink of an economic recession.
Finding work in her dream field, the legal system, wasn’t panning out and her family became her priority for a while.
In 2022, she was ready to try again. Davis-Taylor came back to UBalt for its M.A. in Legal Studies. Before her graduation in 2024, she learned about the M.S. in Negotiations and Conflict Management program and applied to stay. She saw it as another avenue toward fulfilling her career goals and more time to benefit from free campus resources, including the Career and Internship Center’s services.
The career center’s workshop appealed to Davis-Taylor as an older adult looking for new ways to find the right fit in her field.
“How to write a resume, how to target, looking for a job have changed so much, and it was good to learn new ways of doing it,” she said. “Everything that I learned in it was an a-ha moment for me.”
Echoing Bennett, Davis-Taylor also appreciated the insight to finding hidden jobs. In her session, Farley, associate director of career services, helped students further navigate job searching tools and systems, which Davis-Taylor said helped her find jobs hiding in plain sight.
Farley showed students the value of using keywords to pinpoint opportunities and how to trigger notifications based on keywords, so job alerts come to their inboxes.
“I feel like this career clinic really is covering it all and I really appreciate that,” Davis-Taylor said. “Sometimes you get information from career sources, and they assume that you already have a career. I feel like this career center does doesn't automatically assume you're working in your field and that you know what to do. It really is giving you the cookie crumbs—they spell it out, so I really appreciate that.”
Both students urged their peers to seek out the career center for support, whether that means attending workshops, setting up meetings with their career coach or dropping in the office to see what’s available. The career center, located on the third floor of the UBalt Student Center, has a Career Closet offering free professional attire for students. The center also newly opened a photo studio, a permanent place for longtime pop-up service helping students get a portrait for their LinkedIn profiles.
“The career center is a really important resource for UBalt students, especially if you're an overthinker like me,” Bennett said. … “I’ve also taken advantage of the Career Closet and LinkedIn photo studio already, and I think that with the current economy we're in right now, people would be excited to know that we have these free resources right on our campus.”
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Watch to learn how two UBalt staff members, Kara Kauffman and La-Toya Gomez, pivoted to find jobs amid the 2008 recession.
