Having a look at the
May 23rd selection from the EOI Pool, it appears that depending on how many points you can claim for work experience, you could be selected with as few as 100 points if you can wiggle your qualifications into one of the areas of absolute skills shortages.
I believe the logical next step would be to have your
qualifications examined by the NZQA.
I'm hoping someone else who has experience coming up through the trades can weigh in here, since that has me at a bit of a loss.
One other note: Don't be too anxious to get everything else done. Be sure your EOI will have a reasonable chance of being selected before you take steps like having your police background check, your medicals, etc. since a lot of that stuff could expire before you are ready to complete and turn in your ITA. You can
take a look at my earlier thread for some advice with that.