Skills and Employment Resources

These resources were developed for a convening at the Academy in December 2025 that brought together community college leaders, researchers, employers from the Boston area, education organizations, and philanthropists to discuss the best ways to help postsecondary students obtain the skills they need to secure meaningful employment. 

Specifically, the meeting focused on defining high-demand skills and matching learners with opportunities and employment in healthcare in the Boston area. It was led by Bridget Terry Long (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and supported by Robert C. Pozen (MIT) as a funder and thought leader. An article in the Academy Bulletin conveys some key areas of discussion, and Long shared her takeaways from the convening. 

While the specific focus of the meeting at the Academy in December 2025 was the healthcare sector in the Boston area, many of the topics and takeaways may be broadly applicable to other local economies. This work is part of the Academy's Commission on Opportunities After High School.

RESOURCES

From the December 2025 Meeting
Compilation of Slide Presentations

ADVANCING SKILL DEVELOPMENT:

“Community Colleges Aim to Shorten the Path to Skilled Jobs” (2025)
Federal funding and streamlined community college curriculum could make it easier to get on track for steady, well-paid employment.

Insights from Hiring Managers on Entry Level Preparedness (2025)
The 2025 New Hire Readiness Report reveals that the majority of hiring managers feel that high school graduates are not prepared to enter the workforce. The nature of work is evolving rapidly in response to AI, shifting economic demands, and newly emerging industries. Employers today—as this new survey shows—are looking for more than foundational academic credentials in candidates. They’re eager to find talent who can think critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, and adapt quickly.

Durable Skills, Strong Starts: What Employers Really Want from Early-Career Talent (2025)
While technical skills, especially AI-specific capacities, are capturing a lot of headlines right now, durable skills and attitudes, distinctly human skills and attitudes, have always been in high demand, appearing on annual top skills lists.

Durable Skills Leveled Competency Framework (2024)
Education Design Lab’s Durable Skills Competency Framework was created in 2013 through a collaborative process with employers and educators. It identifies the nine most in-demand durable skills and breaks them into sub-competencies with observable behaviors.
 

APPROACHES TO WORKFORCE TRAINING AND MICROCREDENTIALS:

Bunker Hill Community College - Inclusive Communication Practices Skill Badge
This program highlights the in-demand workplace skills you're already building at BHCC while completing your degree. Gain recognition for the skills you learn in courses and co-curricular programs and learn how to present them confidently for career success.

FastForward at Virginia’s Community Colleges
FastForward is a short-term training program for high-demand industries, like healthcare, information technology and skilled trades and infrastructure, helping Virginians get the jobs they want and the salaries they need.

Education Design Lab: 
The Lab’s micro-pathways initiative now helps 100+ community colleges design industry-aligned training programs (2025)
Education Design Lab’s Community College Growth Engine is scaling stackable, skills-based pathways at community colleges across the country, better preparing them to fully leverage the forthcoming workforce Pell program.
 

THE ROLE OF EMPLOYERS: FOSTERING PARTNERSHIP AND NEW EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES

The Evolution of Hiring: Microcredentials and Company Process and Training (2025)
Utilizing data from Northeastern’s recent survey of hiring managers and insights from Grads of Life’s skillsfirst consulting and training, this brief provides a picture of what employers can do to support managers in hiring more people who have gained skills through microcredentials.

Massachusetts Microcredential Coalition
The Massachusetts Microcredential Coalition is a cross-sector initiative that brings together educational institutions, industry partners, workforce development organizations, and state agencies to create a collaborative ecosystem focused on microcredentials. 

Friends in Both Places: An Investigation into Best Practices for Community College and Employer Partnerships (2023)
This report aims to highlight similarities among successful college-workforce partnerships and contribute to the growing body of literature on the subject.

A Community College’s Guide to Engaging Employers (2024)
This guidebook includes insights from the Lab’s work with over 50 community colleges as well as case studies completed in partnership with Harvard’s Project on Workforce.
 

OTHER RESOURCES AND ARTICLES OF INTEREST

The False Dichotomy between Academic Learning & Occupational Skills (2019)
What distinctions are there between vocational (career and technical) education and academic learning in college? There is considerable overlap between the two types of education, so a separation of tracks presents a false dichotomy. We argue for an alternative framework for thinking about the optimal accumulation of skills in college. Rejecting the traditional distinction between vocational education and academic learning, we posit that educational paths are best understood as accumulations of general education followed by terminal work-related education.

Forging Partnerships to Align Education and Industry for the Workforce of Tomorrow (2024)
This report highlights the critical role of business-higher education partnerships in addressing skills gaps, advancing diversity, and building an innovative workforce that is ready for the jobs of tomorrow. The study offers an in-depth look at the state of collaboration today and actionable recommendations for the future.

The AI-Enabled Professional Framework (2025)
BHEF partnered with leaders across industries and higher education to develop the AI-Enabled Professional Framework. This employer-validated and industry-agnostic framework gives companies and colleges a shared language for what it really means to be AI-ready, and a pathway to get talent there.

If any of these links are not functional, please let us know at web@amacad.org. Thank you.