Eight-year career gap – Lisa’s story

Lisa joined the Restart Scheme having been out of work for eight years whilst raising her son. With a long career gap on her CV, Lisa found it hard to get past interview stage when applying for jobs.

During her initial appointment, she met with Employment Adviser, Katrina, and built a good working relationship by creating a new CV together, which helped to address areas for improvement and highlighting her skills and experience.

Katrina completed a Better Off Calculation with Lisa, to demonstrate how being back in work would positively financially impact her, working both full and part-time hours.

Lisa was invited to interview at a local home retail store, and Katrina was on hand to prepare her with mock interviews and practice interview questions with other members of the Restart Scheme team to build her confidence in an interview environment. It wasn’t long before she received the good news and was offered the job!

Lisa shared: “I have been looking for work for the past few years, but since joining the Restart Scheme, I have now found a suitable part time job that works around me and my family.

“Katrina has made me feel so positive and at ease and she was very helpful in providing me with clothes vouchers to start work with. The Restart team even arranged purchasing a bike for me, for my commute to and from work, and they were very easy to talk to about any concerns I had when starting work again.

“Thank you to everyone at Reed, especially Katrina.”