By now recruitment manager has gladly trashed 70% of all pile and is left with around 80-90 CVs or resumes. Happy with time he has saved, he or she can now spend a little more quality time scanning what remains.

The second stage: 10-15 second glance at first page

At this point, recruitment manager is looking for what is specifically relevant. This requires a match between skills required for job and skills and achievements presented by you. So without really looking at your or CV or resume in too much detail, he simply wants to identify what have you got to offer and does it match his or her organisation’s requirements. He or she will be looking to identify this on first page and without having to try hard to locate this information. The match could be general or it could be specific. But because recruitment manager is only interested in a general match, spending a relatively small amount of time (10-15 seconds) in gauging this, he will include CVs or resumes at this stage which will still be filtered later. By now there around 40 CVs or resumes that remain, about half from first stage of filtering.

The third stage: Short listing for interview stage

Here recruitment manager spends a little more time, and picks out those CVs and resumes that have a specific match, or a very close match to job requirements, and these are considered potential candidates. Here, method of recruitment manager has changed from elimination of irrelevant CVs and resumes to picking out highly relevant and quality matches. So after this stage, about two-thirds of remaining pile will be discarded and we have around 15 CVs or resumes that remain.

The fourth stage: Picking candidates from short list

It is only at this point that recruitment manager will now look in more detail and go beyond first page of CV or resume to pick candidates from short list. There are a number of factors that recruitment manager will be focusing upon:

* Is candidate’s latest work experience related to job being offered

* Does candidate have a strong academic background

* What type of companies has candidate worked for

* What achievements has candidate demonstrated from previous jobs

* What non-technical and job-specific skills does candidate possess

After looking at these factors, final interview list will be prepared which can be less than 5 candidates. So, have you got a CV or resume that will survive these four steps? The reality of recruitment process shows that you need a targeted and focused CV or resume that not only grabs attention by showing a skills match, but is also crafted, worded and formatted to give you an edge over other candidates.

Many of community colleges have these cool placement tests that tell you what kinds of work you'd be happy doing. They ask you a bunch of multiple choice questions like if you'd rather work indoors or outside. Do you want to travel as part of your career or stay home? How much weight are you willing to lift? How introverted or extroverted are you? How much money do you want to make? After you answer these questions and a bunch more, computer system spits out a list of careers that you would be suited to. Keep in mind that what interested you at twenty isn't likely to be same as what interests you at forty. I would think that you could do an online search and find some of those tests online. These will give you some ideas you may have never considered. I remember taking one when I was in my early twenties and I ranked extremely high at "Clergy." I laughed and thought that was stupidest thing I'd ever heard of. I wanted to be a motivational speaker and it took me a couple of days before I realized that it's a very similar job description. Whether I'm telling you about God or I'm telling you how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it's same skills and many of same daily tasks. I'm preaching a different topic, but I'm still up on my soapbox telling you what to do and telling you how to live, aren't I? So be open minded to what test results show.

So, start out by brainstorming ideas of things that you would love to do if money was not an issue. Then add to it results of one of those placement tests. Take ideas from those two exercises and start looking at practicalities of marketability and how much education and training are necessary. If you can find a way to do what you love and make a living at it, then you've got key ingredients to creating a life of abundance and prosperity that rest of world only dreams of. You don't have to stay with something just because you used to love it and now you make a lot of money doing it. If you are bored and ready for something new, then start dreaming and planning your next adventure.

Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge