Returning to work after a break or redundancy

Many women who take time out to raise their families lose confidence and miss out on job opportunities and promotions. In order to 'return to work' or improve their prospects, they can benefit from careers coaching. This helps them compete in the job market while achieving a good work-life balance. We are currently offering coaching under an excellent European Social Fund project, which is designed to help people in Cambridgeshire to improve their job prospects, change the type of work they are doing or move into self-employment. There are various criteria, but the coaching - completely free - is primarily available to those who have not worked for more than a year or are working less than 16 hours a week.

Actually, I've felt in need of coaching myself to cope with the forms! Anyone who has been involved in European or government-funded schemes will know that those endlessly lengthy and exasperating forms have been compiled by a very strange species (and if you haven't, just substitute passport / driving licence forms in your head). Having to put a person's name and date of birth four times and remembering to ask them for a minimum of 5 signatures … Happily for the clients, it's my job to work out which of the 40+ 'tick boxes' are relevant!

That's the important thing and maybe the form compiler has got it right after all, because a recent research project for the Sector Skills Development Agency predicts that the number of women in employment in the UK will grow by more than a million over the next 8 years. N.B. Don't hold back if you are a man - anyone who matches the criteria can take part and benefit!

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