Building a Stronger Workforce in Vermont with a Unified Skills-Based Platform
For the past two years, SkillLab has been proud to partner with the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC), a leader in economic and workforce development in Southern Vermont. Through the eyes of Alex Beck, a 10-year workforce development professional at BDCC, we've seen firsthand the challenges and triumphs of building a more inclusive workforce.
This is the story of how our collaboration with BDCC brought the Vermont Employment Pathfinder (VEP) platform to life. The VEP is built on SkillLab's core technology, which is designed to capture a person’s unique skills from their life, education and work experiences and connect them to career pathways. Together, we deployed this platform to serve the entire spectrum of the community, creating a more unified and effective workforce system for the state of Vermont.
Introducing the VEP in Winooski, Vermont.
The challenge: a fragmented system with diverse needs
BDCC, as the economic and workforce development organization for Windham County, faced a complex set of challenges. Vermont’s workforce system was fragmented, lacking the centralized tools needed to engage a large number of people across a wide, rural geography. This systemic issue created distinct hurdles for different populations.
- For refugees: Newly arrived refugees faced immense pressure to find work quickly. This often forced them into the first available low-wage job. They needed a way to quickly translate their life experience and non-traditional work histories from their home countries into professional, skills-based resumes that would open doors to better careers.
- For high school students: Across the region, school guidance counselors were stretched thin, often dealing with student crises, leaving little time for in-depth career planning. As a result, many students were graduating without a resume or a clear understanding of their own skills.
- For the workforce system: With no centralized tools, supporting these diverse groups was a labor-intensive process, reliant on in-person workshops that were difficult to scale. BDCC needed a single, efficient tool to create "programmatic efficiencies" and serve all residents effectively.
The solution: a common platform for individualized journeys
The BDCC deployed the Vermont Employment Pathfinder as a unifying solution. The platform’s flexible design allowed it to meet the specific needs of each user group while creating a more cohesive system overall. By the first half of 2025 the VEP has been used by 870 Vermonters who have articulated over 43,000 skills. It serves as a unifying force for all user groups by:
The platform sign-ups throughout the implementation.
1. A universal language of skills
The platform's core strength is its ability to help anyone articulate their skills, regardless of their background. This includes users from more than 30 different countries and speakers of 20 different languages. This is also proven by the very nature of the experiences users chose to document. For example, users registered thousands of experiences, with 31,5% coming from work history, 20% from educational projects, and a significant 48,5% from life experiences, such as managing a household or caregiving.
The multinational VEP users were able to articulate their skills regardless of origin.
Alex described the tool’s impact with a powerful example, "A high school student who worked on their family farm could use the same tool as a refugee woman who successfully raised a family. The platform guided them to identify transferable skills, giving them the confidence that the tool "gets you.""
Experience added to the platform by VEP users.
2. Empowering the next generation
For students, the VEP became a critical tool for self-discovery. The top career interests appear in sectors vital to Vermont's economy, including health sciences, teaching and education, Visual arts, Design & Media.
3. Efficiency for counselors and educators
For counselors, who worked with the refugee population, the platform was a game-changer, making resume generation and skills-based intake "significantly easier". For high school teachers, it provided an easy way to ensure every student completed a resume, offering clear accountability. The platform’s resume-building feature was a clear success with more than 1,169 resumes created.
Number of CV created with the VEP throughout the implementation period.
The impact: creating opportunity across the board
By implementing a single tool, BDCC drove significant and distinct outcomes for each segment of the community. Alex cited the following impact as evidence of the positive outcomes:
Unlocking hidden skills
When working with refugees for example the most significant hurdle was often a language barrier or a user's difficulty in articulating their work history in a way that American employers would understand. Our platform's skill assessment interview became the bridge.
Alex described one powerful example “a woman from Eritrea, a successful worker and mother in her home country, struggled to describe her capabilities. Through the platform's guided process, she articulated her core competencies: "I cook, I clean, I'm on time". Our system translated these simple, honest statements into a recognized skill set.”
"That's enough to get a foot in the door," Alex notes. "And that is often the only thing that many of these refugees need. That first job was serving food at the local hospital; a year later, she has her CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) and is in clinical position, garnering a much higher wage". These skills, captured in what the BDCC team called the "interview box," — a guided step where users reflect on their experiences and select the skills they’ve gained — became the key to unlocking initial opportunities.
Through the platform's guided process, a successful worker and mother from Eritrea articulated her core competencies. Our system translated these simple statements into a recognized skill set. That's enough to get a foot in the door. And that is often the only thing that many refugees need. Her first job was serving food at the local hospital; a year later, she has her CNA and is in clinical position, garnering a much higher wage
Refugees leaped into high-wage careers
Armed with professional, skills-based resumes, refugees were able to bypass the low-wage trap. Instead of taking the first job offered, they secured positions in local manufacturing and healthcare sectors with upward mobility. This led to a direct and measurable economic benefit.
As Alex Beck of the BDCC states, "I attribute the high average wages of our refugees to our ability to place them in good jobs. And this is a big part of that".
Onboarding students in Twin Valley to the VEP.
Students graduated with confidence and a plan
The platform ensured that hundreds of students had a resume in hand before graduation. More importantly, it gave them the "empowering component" of knowing their own skills. In some schools, engagement was so high that students continued to use the tool long after the initial workshop, demonstrating its lasting value as a personal career planning resource.
A more capable and efficient workforce system
For BDCC, the platform proved that a technology-driven approach could successfully serve a diverse population at scale. It also provided invaluable labor market insights. An analysis of the thousands of skills articulated by users revealed that the most popular competencies across the entire Vermont talent pool were Communicate with customers with 34%, Maintain relationship with customers and customer service with 27%, and Create solutions to problems with 26%. This data gives BDCC real-time view of the skills available in their community, allowing for more strategic employer engagement.
The BDCC’s success with the Vermont Employment Pathfinder demonstrates that with the right tool and a dedicated team, it is possible to build a system that honors individual journeys while strengthening the entire community.
Interested in using the same solution for your community? Contact us to learn more how to start!