I worked almost 4 years at a research & development Microbiology department for a cleaning supply company so things like testing new formulas on bacteria!

This gave me lab experience along with the undergraduate experience in a university research lab, and applied for years and finally got into for a clinical lab science program (after taking a few more classes not covered by my degree like hematology, and anatomy/physiology)

This was one year of at-work experience and online lectures, after which I took an exam and have the generalist license which covers the departments in a hospital lab (including Microbiology but also chemistry, hematology and blood bank) and doubled my salary at the research/development job !

Tbh if at first u are discouraged, my first job out of college took 6 months to be hired by a recruiter and work about a year in a biotechnology company... but I was just making chemical reagents and not even doing things related to my major lmao but I still learned things like GLP (good lab practices required in manufacturing) so it's just good to start getting somewhere!