A PAIR of award winning careers advisers have published an e-book to help anyone struggling in the current recession to manage a widening career gap.

Daniel Walker, from Loudwater, and David Palmer-Mitchell together wrote Mind the Career Gap which aims to help job searchers reduce 40 hours of looking for a new position to 15.

They are passionate about helping clients find careers that inspire and fulfil them and they don’t believe the journey to that should be any less enjoyable.

After an inauspicious journey through school and university, Daniel worked a series of day jobs mainly picked for their flexibility so he could moonlight as a bass guitarist at night.

When Daniel began yearning something more fulfilling from his day job, he began work as a careers adviser and over the past six years has experimented with a wide range of ideas to help himself and others to push themselves up the scrapheap and compete with those who have 'model' CVs.

Daniel, who went to school in Marlow, said: "I didn’t gain great qualifications from school and a lot of my first jobs weren’t anything to write home about.

"I’ve tested a lot of my own advice on myself and in the last year have made a huge difference to my own CV, skills and confidence. I’ve completed and thoroughly enjoyed Open University courses, started my own business, volunteered and fundraised. I’ve also started a fitness programme and stuck with it for the first time in my life, but I’ve also made sure I spend quality time with my family and baby boy."

In July 2011 Daniel was lead careers adviser in the small Bridge2Employment team which was awarded the Howard League Prize for supporting ex-offenders into employment, education and training.

As for David Palmer-Mitchell, he did not follow a conventional education path. At 28 he had no qualifications or prospects, yet by 34 he was a qualified careers adviser, university lecturer and computer technician.

He made these changes with hard work, determination, learning to take opportunities and by embracing the simple steps included in this guide.

Both Daniel and David work as full time careers advisers but they noticed that many people were struggling with managing demoralising full time job searching and career gaps that were getting ever bigger, and making finding work a struggle.

They decided that this was unnecessary and they teamed up to create a practical, user friendly approach to ending the cycle of long term job searching becoming a barrier to employment and ultimately fulfilment.

The book is full of useful and innovative methods to help you take control of your career gap. This includes detailed information on: How to gain qualifications for free, how to select suitable volunteering and present it on your CV, business enterprise ideas with no investment required and reduce 40 hours of weekly job search to 15.

Mind The Career Gap is published by Frankman Press is available on Amazon Kindle.

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