With thousands of life sciences workers needed, some say 'microcredentials' could revolutionize hiring

On a recent afternoon at Northeastern University's Innovation Campus in Burlington, 33 people gathered with their friends and families to celebrate their graduation from a training program aimed at fast-tracking their way into the life sciences industry.

The eight-week program in biomanufacturing and life sciences, called Pathmaker, granted the students what's known as a "microcredential" — a type of certification that conveys that the holder learned very specific skills that have been tested and verified by an outside evaluator.

The life sciences industry is projected to need thousands more workers over the next decade. Microcredentials are the newest way some educators and business leaders are looking to fill in-demand jobs that require specialized skills.

It's a diverse group of participants gathered at the Northeastern event: Some have degrees. Some don't. Some come from other countries. And some grew up in the region — like Alisha Hines, 32, who was raised in Dorchester and now lives in Methuen.

"What inspired me to come into this program is the ability to help find cures, help find treatment, and the ability to create a product," she said.

Hines previously worked in customer service and wanted to pivot into the life sciences industry. The training program gave Hines and her cohort hands-on training in a lab setting.

"And to see these cells!" Hines said enthusiastically. "We worked with real cells and we were responsible for keeping them alive."

Through the Pathmaker program, Hines earned two microcredentials in lab safety and aseptic technique, which focuses on preventing contamination in sterilized environments.

The credentials come in the form of a digital badge that look like an icon or graphic that she can now put on her LinkedIn profile or resume.

Hines hopes this certification will help her land an entry-level job in the industry as a lab technician or manufacturing associate.

"I definitely just want to get my foot in the door and excel," she said.

Good, high-paying jobs are part of the draw of the industry. Salaries average in the six figures and entry-level jobs can start at $25 an hour, according to the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

While hiring has slowed down recently due to the Trump administration's federal funding cuts, the industry is still expected to need more technicians and other positions in the coming years. Different training programs have popped up to help fill this need, and some believe microcredentials can help standardize those efforts — and revolutionize hiring.

"A lot of the work in the life sciences, you don't need a degree to do," said Jared Auclair, the dean of Northeastern's College of Professional Studies.

Auclair, who also runs Northeastern's biopharmaceutical analysis training lab in Burlington, said he is "a big fan of getting rid of the traditional resume" and moving towards a skills-based resume.

He helped create the Massachusetts Microcredential Coalition, which is made up of educators, employers and government leaders who are working to promote microcredentials as an alternative way for people to get jobs in the life sciences sector.

"I can remember graduating from college and thinking to myself, 'Wow, I took a lot of interesting classes and I learned a lot of theory, but I don't know how to do anything,'" Auclair said. He "took a bunch of lab classes, like everybody does," but there was "no validation or evaluation of my ability to do them."

"A lot of the work in the life sciences, you don't need a degree to do."

Jared Auclair, the dean of Northeastern's College of Professional Studies

Microcredentials, on the other hand, signal to employers that skills have been verified. The Bioscience Core Skills Institute, based in Kansas City, sends evaluators across the country to test different lab skills — like using a microscope to identify specimens or transferring small amounts of liquid with a pipette.

" We don't care how long it took you to learn it, and we don't care where you learned it," said Angela Consani, the institute's CEO and cofounder. "What we want to provide is evidence that you know how to do it."

The evaluators are certified and run performance-based tests, Consani said. An individual performs a skill in front of an evaluator, who watches their movements and the operation carefully to assure they're doing it properly and hitting certain steps in the process.

Consani's institute has partnered with Northeastern and other local training programs to help implement microcredentials as a viable qualification for jobs in Massachusetts' life sciences sector. So far, the institute has evaluated more than 600 students in the greater Boston region alone, according to Consani. 

But for microcredentials to catch on, employers have to adopt them into their hiring practices. So far, uptake has been slow.

"There isn't enough momentum behind any kind of universal non-degree credential" within the life sciences industry yet, said Mae Tobin-Hochstadt, who oversees the city of Boston’s Life Sciences Career Alliance. The alliance works with employers and training programs to increase access to employment in the life sciences.

Tobin-Hochstadt said one industry that has seen success in credentialing is health care, "where there's a lot of regulation about what that looks like."

Some life sciences employers are becoming more open to microcredentials.

"We are always looking for new ways of doing things, whether, honestly, that's like our science, our business model, our people," said Becky Zoccola, the executive director of talent acquisition and people experience at ElevateBio, a cell and gene therapy company in Waltham.

Zoccola, who helped create curriculum for the Pathmaker program, sees microcredentials as a way to recruit different talent. Still, she hasn't hired anyone with microcredentials yet. "But that is hopefully, hopefully coming soon," she said.

While microcredentials could help bring more people into the life sciences sector, it won't solve all of the industry's workforce challenges.

"What it's not going to address necessarily is the demand for highly trained talent that is also short in this industry," said Michelle Mischke, the vice president of education programs at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation.

"People with master's [degrees] and PhDs is also a gap that we need to fill," she added.

Among the graduates at Northeastern's Burlington campus, there is at least one success story on the job front.

Jonathan Kibirige moved to the U.S. from Uganda in March. He earned two microcredentials — for aseptic technique and pipetting — through the Pathmaker training program. Now, he's an associate at Lonza, a healthcare manufacturing company in New Hampshire.

"I got an offer to fully work on a contract [for] one year," Kibirige, 34, said with a smile.

"It's a blessing," he added. "The training and the program was a good step for me to get into it."