Monday, November 27, 2006

Apprentice lesson #1: more candidates than you can shake a stick at

As with pastoral candidacy, many more candidates apply for The Apprentice than actually get anything close to an interview.  Thousands of applicants have "tried out" for The Apprentice, yet each time only 15 candidates become "finalists" for the position.

While it is probably quite rare that thousands of applications are received for any pastoral position, it is certainly the case that many more will apply at some level than will actually receive any sort of response or follow-up, let alone an interview.

This scale of quantity is significant for pastoral candidates (and any other candidate, for that matter): it is a safe bet that for every one resume you submit there will be many others to match it.  And for every position you get an interview for, dozens (maybe even hundreds) of other applicants did not get this far.

Being aware of the quantity of your "competition" is humbling and gives important perspective.  (I'll reflect more on the perspective in a later post.)

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