In today’s competitive job market, it’s crucial to do all you can to catch the eye of recruiters and hiring managers. You polish your resume, enhance your LinkedIn, and build your network. But sometimes even doing all of this doesn’t feel like enough to get your foot in the door, which can be really frustrating.

You’re not alone. Right now, we’re in a period where the job search seems more difficult than ever. In fact, recent surveys claim that 70% of job seekers are unexpectedly having a more challenging time landing a position (1). There are factors like ghost jobs and applicant tracking systems that now need to be considered. It’s no wonder that job seekers are exhausted with the process, trying to figure out what to do next.

Fortunately, there’s another way to draw the attention of employers, and that’s through personal branding. Personal branding plays a pivotal role in setting yourself apart from other candidates. Your personal brand is how you present your professional identity, skills, and values to potential employers. It encompasses everything from your online presence to how you communicate during networking events or interviews.

According to a CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates, and 50% decide not to hire based on what they find (2). Therefore, maintaining a consistent, professional image across platforms is crucial. LinkedIn remains a top tool for building a professional brand, but platforms like X and Instagram can also highlight your personal interests and values, giving employers a holistic view of who you are.

Here are some tips on how you can curate a strong personal brand for the job market and beyond:

1. Be Consistent: Use the same profile photo and handle (where possible) across platforms to create a cohesive identity.
2. Showcase Your Expertise: Share industry-relevant content, write thoughtful posts, and engage in discussions with other thought leaders to demonstrate your knowledge.
3. Highlight Your Personality: Employers want to see your authentic self — post about your hobbies, values, or volunteer work to add a personal touch.
4. Audit Your Digital Footprint: Regularly review your social media profiles to ensure they reflect your professional brand. Remove or hide any content that may not align with the image you want to project.

For even more information, refer to the LinkedIn and branding articles in our Career Guide.  

In summary, by incorporating some of these tips, you’ll be well on your way to showcasing your personal brand, which, in turn, can increase your visibility on the job market. Need a new connection? Follow us on Instagram at @umbccareers to stay updated on our latest news and events.

(1)  https://www.aerotek.com/en/about-us/news-and-events/news/2023/12/aerotek-fall-job-seeker-survey-job-seekers-say-job-hunt-more-difficult
(2) https://resources.careerbuilder.com/employer-blog/70-of-employers-use-social-networking-sites-to-research-candidates-during-hiring-process

BEYA STEM Career Fair (FREE --Both In-Person or Virtual)

Friday, February 14, 2025

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Time: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Registration Deadline: Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Open to ALL Students (undergraduate and graduate)

Jobs--full-time, part-time, internships and graduate admissions

This event is sponsored by Career Communications Group (CCG) and is part of their large annual conference, which will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center. Representatives from major corporations and universities will be available to meet with students pursuing careers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields as well as Business, Finance, and Marketing. Why should you participate?

•       FREE Career Fair (in-person & virtual options)
•       Career seminar options
•       On the spot job offers
•       Networking with recruiters
•       Learn and network with the country's best and brightest STEM minds

Registration is required. Your registration will give you access to the in-person and online Career Fairs. The UMBC Career Center will provide a free shuttle bus to the Career Fair on Friday. If you would like to take the free shuttle bus, you must register with both BEYA and the UMBC Career Center by Tuesday, February 11th.

•      To register, please follow the instructions at: https://careers.umbc.edu/beya 

Please be sure to upload your resume at the time of registration.

 Contact Diane Crump-Fogle (crump@umbc.edu) or Chrisi Giannakaris (chrisig@umbc.edu) at the UMBC Career Center for additional information.

In fall 2022, the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at UMBC and the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) received a five-year, $13.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to enhance recruitment and training of junior faculty and promote inclusive excellence at UMBC. Since then, UMBC and UMSOM teams have been planning programming for the incoming FIRST (Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation) cohort, undertaking faculty searches, and otherwise preparing for their new colleagues’ arrival. 

As of this fall, four new UMBC faculty members and three new UMSOM faculty have been selected, with three more to be added at UMSOM. Two of UMBC’s hires are busy doing research, recruiting students, and settling into their new positions. The other two will officially assume their roles in January, but they are already visiting campus and starting to set up their laboratory spaces. 

In November, the leads on the grant from both institutions and all the new hires gathered at UMBC for a reception to celebrate their first semester and build community among the cohort.

A talented group

“Although I have only been on board for three months, I already feel the leadership’s dedication to supporting early-career faculty, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, through professional development and tailored resources,” shared Cheng-Yu Li, a new assistant professor of biological sciences at UMBC hired through the program. “I am excited to work alongside this talented group of scientists and contribute to advancing neuroscience research, education, and outreach.”

Li’s research straddles neuroscience and behavior. His model system, African cichlid freshwater fish, is useful for studying reproductive and social behaviors, such as courtship rituals and aggression. Many of the mechanisms involved are applicable across a wide range of species. 

Carmen Muñoz-Ballester, another new assistant professor of biological sciences at UMBC, is finding her department colleagues and the FIRST cohort to be helpful resources as she navigates her first year. 

“The Department of Biological Sciences at UMBC provides a very supportive environment for building a scientific career, and I am very happy to be part of this thriving community,” Muñoz-Ballester says. “Life as a faculty member can be overwhelming at the beginning, and having the opportunity to share challenges and small wins with people in similar situations makes it much better. I am very glad to have my peers to count on in my daily life, and I am committed to making the most of this opportunity and paying it forward to future trainees and colleagues.”

Muñoz-Ballester’s work focuses on sex differences in the response to traumatic brain injury. Severe or repeated brain injuries (such as seen in football players) are getting more attention today, and men suffer more traumatic brain injuries overall, but she notes that women tend to have worse outcomes than men after sustaining less-severe brain injuries. Muñoz-Ballester will work to unpack the neural mechanisms behind the effects of these injuries in both sexes, potentially leading to more effective treatments.

Tackling the biggest challenges

Diana Elizondo and Gretchen Alicea will round out the FIRST cohort at UMBC. Elizondo is an immunologist who uses mice to study signaling pathways involved in inflammation and metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity. Alicea focuses on how metabolic changes in the environment immediately surrounding malignant tumors are related to the risk of metastasis. Jose Lemme, Alisha Blazer, and Amed Outtara have been brought on board at UMSOM.

William R. LaCourse, CNMS dean, is thrilled to welcome these new members of the faculty to UMBC. Their research interests include some of the most pressing issues society faces today, like cancer and obesity. These researchers are also approaching study areas that may deserve more attention from innovative angles.

“Thank you for choosing our institutions to be a part of your academic careers. We want you to know that your success goes beyond the UM FIRST program and even beyond tenure. Your success is that you always find joy in research, mentoring, teaching, and life,” LaCourse said at the reception. “This room is full of individuals who are there for you.”

Now in its fifth year, UMBC’s 2024 International Education Week (IEW) hosted by the Center for Global Engagement (CGE), celebrated UMBC’s commitment to international education. Events throughout the week highlighted international opportunities such as education abroad experiences, prestigious fellowships like the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, as well as international career prospects and intercultural initiatives on campus. 

IEW is a nationwide event that’s a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education. This year’s first UMBC International Education Expo featured keynote speakers from the Maryland Higher Education Commission leadership—Secretary Sanjay K. Rai and vice chair Chike Aguh—who shared some of their personal international education experiences with a packed room of international students, faculty, staff, and community members.

“I’m from a very small town in Nigeria. My parents received scholarships to study in the United States of America at public universities like UMBC. Without international education I would not be here,” said Aguh, who was appointed by President Joseph Biden to serve as chief innovation officer at the U.S. Department of Labor. 

“I ask you to recognize that this is a shared world and that your people have a right to live on it just like mine do,” said Aguh. That’s a very basic understanding, but it’s one that we don’t have enough of today. And many of you who are here right now are going to be the ones who hopefully help remind the rest of us of that. Maryland, America, and the world has need of you.”

According to David Di Maria, associate vice provost for international education, UMBC currently hosts 2,127 international students from nearly 100 countries. These students contribute valuable knowledge in research, performing arts, athletics, and community engagement.

One example is Ridwan Islam Sifat, an M.P.P. graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree at UMBC’s School of Public Policy who is researching healthcare disparities among intersex individuals in the United States. Sifat joined UMBC as an international student after earning both a B.S. and M.S. from the Bangladesh University of Professionals. 

UMBC also has many international partnerships, including this year’s collaboration with the American Statistical Association to organize its annual African International Conference on Statistics. Additionally, UMBC’s Academic Success Center holds one of six Learning Center of Excellence designations from the International College Learning Center Association. The impact of a globally-minded campus is vast.

President Valerie Sheares Ashby also shared a personal story of her first time studying abroad and the lifelong impact that made on her.

“I spent one year doing a postdoc in Germany and it changed my life,” said Sheares Ashby at the IEW event.  

“I think it made me a better teacher and it certainly made me a better researcher. And it definitely made me a better human. I think about the world globally in a way that I did not before I had that experience. So when I say we are better because you [international students] are here, it is 100 percent the truth.”

Learn more about the Center for Global Engagement.

Middle school sweethearts, Ellyn Fennema and Joseph Patarini came to UMBC to pursue global studies (her) and geography and environmental studies (him). Despite their busy schedules, they were able to squeeze in a wedding between their sophomore and junior years, followed by a two-week van camping trip around Iceland. While it wasn’t their main goal for the trip, their majors seemed to align perfectly with learning about a new country and its geography. It wasn’t until Joseph found himself sitting outside Ellyn’s Research Methods in Global Studies and Approaches to Globalization classes with Felipe Filomeno, associate professor of political science and director of UMBC’s global studies program, that his interest was piqued by how to connect both their fields in a real-world setting.

“We used to carpool, so while I waited for her, I could hear Filomeno’s lecture,” says Joseph. “I was like, ‘Oh, he’s really cool and the discussions they have are really interesting.” Ellyn felt this was an excellent way to deepen his knowledge of the world. “Professor Filomeno makes learning these topics interactive and fun.” 

When Joseph learned about Filomeno’s 2024 Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Brazil project on climate change, he quickly enrolled. It equips students with the technical and interpersonal skills to thrive in professional online international and intercultural environments. COIL makes international scholarship and intercultural learning accessible by removing barriers of cost and travel while preparing students with essential skills for future in-person exchanges. COIL Brazil was part of Filomeno’s spring Global Citizenship class in collaboration with former colleague Clarissa Dri, a professor of international relations at his alma mater, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC, the Federal University of Santa Catarina), in southern Brazil. 

Dri’s expertise includes Brazilian foreign policy, international cooperation, and human rights. “Clarissa and I teamed up because we value intercultural exchanges. We were both international students,” says Filomeno. “Clarissa earned a Ph.D. from the University of Bordeaux in France. I earned mine at Johns Hopkins Hopkins as a Fulbright Scholar.”

The program enrolls Retrievers and Brazilian students to enhance their intercultural competence and knowledge of human rights, democracy, and climate change policy advocacy. Spring 2024 was its third iteration with plans of future offerings 

“COIL has become another major pedagogical tool I use for active global learning,” says Filomeno, noting along with Dri the growing interest in COIL from one day in the first year to four weeks in spring 2025 “The students are very interested and happy with the intercultural interactions, exploring cultural differences, and the possibility to interact in English,” says Dri. “They are amazed by the concrete possibility of talking to someone who is in the U.S. right now and to listen to what they think of our country.” 

Politics without borders

Ellyn saw COIL as a way for Joseph to combine his ongoing GES research with a global studies perspective. “Since Brazil holds the lungs of the earth—the Amazon rainforest—getting the ideas and perspectives of Brazilian students would be valuable for his future career.” Before participating in COIL, Joseph’s understanding of Brazil was at a more physical level. At the GES research lab, he tracked forest plantations, deforestation, and land use change using global satellite imagery. COIL was an extra opportunity to develop a personal, qualitative understanding of land-use change, deforestation, and Brazilian environmental policies.

Filomeno and Dri coordinated the classes on Webex to align with the one-hour time difference. Students implement online social science research methods to gather and analyze data in 10 to 30-minute increments before sharing their findings. Each group schedules time outside of class to further their research and final presentations.

In Joseph’s class, students took on roles from various U.S. and Brazilian constituents including political parties, worker’s unions, philanthropic organizations, and Brazilian indigenous rights groups. Teams researched their constituents’ climate stance and proposed two goals for the their country to pursue at the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Joseph’s group proposed that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focus on developing and deploying green technologies in agriculture and biodiversity preservation in Brazil.

Courage in politics

Gustavo Peres, a first-year international relations student at UFSC, believes it takes courage to actively engage in international political discourse. Initially, Peres was hesitant to apply to COIL Brazil 2023 because of the English language requirement but he was intrigued by the subject material which focused on democracy in the context of the presidential elections in the U.S. in 2020 and in Brazil in 2022.  

“I could have just seen the email and said, ‘No, it’s not for me because I felt a little bit intimidated to be judged about how I speak,” says Peres, a native Portuguese speaker and English language learner. He followed his COIL experience with an internship in international trade. “I can lose a big opportunity to practice English and also know more about other people, their culture, and other things that are very valuable to our life. The West can provide a lot of things to other countries, but I think the other countries can also give a lot to the West.”

UMBC students were surprised by Brazil’s universal public healthcare and free public education without student loans or copays to receive medical care. UFSC students were intrigued that the U.S. lacks compulsory voting. “In Brazil, if you are 18, you have to vote or pay a small tax,” says Peres. “But it’s good that in both Brazil and the U.S. you can vote. I think the voting process is something very important and valuable for democracies.”

Paths to global understanding

Filomeno says students in the U.S. often think about democracy in procedural terms—free and fair elections, the rule of law, etc. “Brazilian students tend to emphasize substantive aspects of democracy—people’s right to education and health care, equality of economic opportunity, etc.,” says Filomeno. “Through dialogue, they realize their understanding of democracy is culturally specific.” 

Filomeno is all too familiar with these cultural differences. When he left Brazil for graduate school in the U.S., he became aware of his way of being. “My ancestors came from Portugal, Lebanon, Italy, and other countries. These cultures appeared in my family’s cuisine, language, and traditions,” says Filomeno. “I realized that the food I was used to eating was not just food but Brazilian food, that the way I greeted people in hallways was not just how people greet each other but how Brazilians greet each other.”

The Patarinis were inspired to fulfill Ellyn’s global studies education abroad requirement together—spending their senior summer in Morocco and Spain. “I felt very excited and fortunate,” says Ellyn. “Many things had to line up to make it happen; however, we put a lot of effort into the application for the CAHSS Dean’s Education Abroad Scholarship process, which made it all possible.”

The Patarinis celebrated their first anniversary in traditional Moroccan style with their friends and host family in Rabat the capital of Morocco during their UMBC faculty-led Intercultural Communication in Morocco and Spain education abroad classes. COIL and education abroad lay the groundwork for students to continue learning and engaging with the world beyond the U.S. Even with busy careers, Ellyn and Joseph plan to continue making time for travel. “Reading and studying global issues is one thing, but experiencing them firsthand offers an entirely new perspective—it ignites a deeper understanding and fuels a powerful drive to create meaningful change,” says Ellyn.

Register for Global Studies Spring 2025 classes.
Learn more about UMBC’s political science department and global studies program on Instagram @global.umbc.