your net:// Insights to give job-seekers a head start

By CHRIS BARTON

Every job-seeker is on the lookout for an advantage over the rest of the pack.

Selector e-Resumé, found under the rather daunting heading Psychometric Profiling at www.myjob.co.nz, could be that something else a job-seeker needs.

Billed as "an on-line resumé builder with a difference," it supplements the traditional list of employment and educational history with a view of your "working style."

Here you'll describe yourself as recruiters do - team player, details person, big-picture thinker, affinity for abstract concepts and so on.

As the site points out: "By adding your psychometric profile to your resumé, you are adding an extra dimension to the picture you are providing to the recruiter and creating an opportunity to provide an insight into your character that you may not have even been aware of yourself."

You can also go a step further and take the Selector e-Profiler test. But that will cost $50.

It's a web-based "psychometric assessment" - the sort of psychobabble questionnaire you sometimes have to fill in at job interviews.

More detailed than the e-Resumé, it measure skills such as verbal and numerical reasoning, independence, competitiveness, extroversion and assertiveness.

Another site worth checking out for budding management types is www.futurestep.co.nz where, based on the information provided at registration, you get an estimate of your salary market value.

But be prepared to set aside at least 40 minutes. The site gathers a lot of biographical information and will give "customised assessment feedback to help you better understand your work style and determine the best work environment and career path for you."

The questionnaires are designed to be taken only once every three to five years.

www.myjob.co.nz

www.futurestep.co.nz