Last time I blogged about how Clean Slate is about re-activating people and how unemployment and the welfare system itself actively switches people off. Since then I met Tom.

Actually, before I met Tom we had an in-house training day. I wanted to double-check everything I have been saying was reflected in all our offices' day to day experience. And I wanted to ensure our committed team - largely made up of former workless people themselves - had the best skills to do the job of re-activating people. So, we ran the day, breaking it down into listening skills, an introduction to our new Job Readiness MOT, and quality standards.

The first workshop was amusing. People paired up to discuss an event one of them held dear. A director, Carole, was describing her daughter's wedding that she'd effectively run. She went into the detail of the challenges, the hiccups, the stress of it all. Obviously slow on the uptake, I was shocked to see her counterpart looking around the room and then start rolling a fag. It didn't occur to me that this was his task in the role play and shame on me for thinking he'd do that. (Carole didn't let on but I swear she'd have been ready to tear him off a strip.)

So when I sat down to meet with Tom it was fresh in my mind that I wasn't there to talk to him but to listen. In particular, we needed to revamp his CV.
Tom speaks five languages fluently and two more passably. He's worked in security, translated for a legal firm, volunteered for Lambeth council, been homeless through relationship breakdown. It's easy to talk about the past. Like talking about the weather. Matter of fact. Can't be changed. But then we got down to reading between the lines.

It turned out the voluntary work was translating for patients and their families in hospitals and the legal work was with people seeking asylum. I imagined how terrifying hospitals must be if you can't speak the language - it's hard enough to know what's going on when we can. We discussed how rewarding Tom found it when families were so grateful to have not only access to information but an advocate. The legal work was with asylum seekers and it turns out Tom was as valuable supporting people who, understandably, feared authority and felt the need to fight for what they need. And we re-built a profile of who Tom is. His CV will be unique to him. He'll come alive in the eyes of employers and he'll be more likely to avoid the reject pile. What's more, Tom began to see himself afresh too.

As we talked and thrashed out how to take his perfectly adequate CV and turn it into a Clean Slate one, it became clearer to me what I wanted. We're called Clean Slate for a reason. It's not much help to job seekers to have them produce a resume; a simple list of where they've been, where they've worked (or not worked), what they've learnt (or not learnt). What they need, and what Clean Slate needs to take to employers and present the latent talent on our books, is a document that shines. It needs to say 'This is who I am', 'This is what I have to offer', and 'This is where I'm going'.

For some, conquering their demons is a positive. I worked with one young woman, Lizzie, who'd spent ten years on drugs since before leaving school. She believed she had nothing to offer employers and less to write up a CV. So we focussed on the future. Again, we're called Clean Slate for a reason. She talked about what gets her going and how hard she worked to turn her life around. She explored the skills she uses to volunteer at Narcotics Anonymous meetings. By the end of session, she's mapped out a CV that left no-one in any doubt what she had to offer. Including Lizzie.

We have a plan for making this the standard delivered in all our offices. More training. More job readiness programmes. More listening. We're ambitious and want to spread around the country so we have to systematise our approach. We're going to have to get good at it: Better than the growing ranks of the competition and good enough to keep re-activating those job seekers.