How long?
I had an application in for just short of 2 years before I got a call to stage 1. I only started sending in updates after 18 months. I think that is what did the trick.
Every 4 or 5 months send and email to the recruitment address with an hours update. That way you stay in the loop (my opinion only)
When I went to stage 2 the only people with 250 hours or less were Hong Kong ID card holders. The rest of us had 1000 to 3000 hours. Think they may be shying away from the 250 Cpl's these days. That's just my opinion again.