Nearly 600 federal workers packed a job fair in Howard County this week to take part in mock interviews, pose for professional headshots and adapt their often-lengthy resumes for the private sector.

Many government workers are bracing for a challenging job search as President Donald Trump’s administration forges ahead with plans to drastically reduce the size of the federal government, which directly employs about 10% of Maryland’s workforce, or about 327,000 people.

The firings have troubled state and local leaders, particularly in places like Howard County, where an estimated 50,000 federal workers reside. County Executive Calvin Ball’s administration partnered with local organizations to hold the job fair this week after hundreds of federal workers showed up at a recent forum to express their distress.

More than 50 employers attended Tuesday night’s fair, including 13 Howard County government departments.

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Inside the crowded room, one federal worker weighed her next moves.

“I came here to talk to people, not to stay home and be sad,” said Katherine Peterson, a staff scientist for the National Institutes of Health.

She has worked for the federal government since 1997 and anticipates that it will come to an end in December, when her appointment ends. The 63-year-old’s mother lives in a continuing care community in Howard County, limiting her ability to relocate for work. She attended the job fair to see what opportunities are out there.

“I still have a lot to give,” Peterson said.

Meanwhile, hard workers in her orbit also have lost their jobs. Peterson offered to write a letter of recommendation for a dismissed colleague and found herself furiously Googling synonyms for “shit show.”

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She eventually settled on the word “omnishambles.”

Some workers also are figuring out how to translate their federal resumes for hiring managers. Resumes for civil service jobs tend to be much longer and detailed than the standard one to two pages expected in other fields.

One Anne Arundel County woman managed to shrink her resume from six pages down to two and a half, a task she described as “painful.”

“This is also practice,” said the woman, who declined to give her name, noting that she is still employed by the federal government and not authorized to speak publicly.

“Everyone should be nervous” about job security, she added.

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Some workers already have been fired or put on administrative leave by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an entity created by a Trump executive order. Some public servants have reported being dismissed with little explanation and virtually no notice as DOGE associates comb through government records. Others fear their jobs will be eliminated next.

Trump and Musk have been attacking federal workers, even questioning their work ethic.

“We’re cutting down the size of government. We have to,” Trump said during the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. “We’re bloated. We’re sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren’t doing their job.”

Many federal workers coming to the job market are highly skilled, which gives some Maryland businesses a windfall of talented candidates to choose from.

CEO Jacqui Magnes, whose company COMSO provides information technology services to the intelligence community, attended the fair in search of applicants willing to sit for a polygraph test.

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“People here are proactive and impressive,” she said after several hours of shaking hands and taking cards.

But even private employers in Maryland that rely on government contracts are feeling the pinch. Federal contractors in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties are planning layoffs for more than 1,250 people, according to a state database.

For some job seekers, the big turnout Tuesday evening confirmed their fears that Maryland’s job market is growing crowded.

Competition was steep even before the Trump administration’s cuts, Dawn Butler said. The 50-year-old said she was laid off from her private sector job in 2024 and started her search for a new gig in cybersecurity about four months ago.

Butler dropped by one potential employer’s table Tuesday but was disappointed to learn it didn’t have any openings. She acknowledged that she has been selective in her job search.

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“Is that foolhardy in these times?” Butler asked as she looked around the busy fair. “I don’t know.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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