Thousands Apply For 'The Best Job In The World'

The Queensland state government wanted to hire a person for “the best job in the world”, it received about 35,000 applications from more than 200 countries. It will announce the winning candidate in May.

The Queensland state government posted a wanted ad for a job it claims “the best job in the world”. The job requires the employee to be a caretaker of tropical Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef and report back to the government in the form of updates.

The job description states:

The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef is a newly created position. There are a few minor tasks that need to be taken care of, but the most important duty is to report back to Tourism Queensland (and the world) and let us know what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

It is very tempting for those who want to escape the busy modern city life. After the job was posted there were some applications but as the news is spreading fast and the deadline was on Sunday, the government received tens of thousands of application over the weekend. So far 34,684 have applied for the lucrative job.

The winning candidate will be announced in eight days.

Most of the applications came from the US, 11,565 applicants, followed by Canada (2,791), Britain (2,262) and Australia (2,064) according to the Queensland government.

One of those applicants was Dean Martin’s son Ricci, who probably wants to escape the fame and fortune of his father.

The job pays about 150,000 Australian Dollars ($100,000) for six months and includes airfares from the candidate’s home to the island.

The job requires them to report about the island and the surrounding Great Barrier Reef back to a global audience via weekly blogs, photo diaries and video updates. He or she will stay in a luxury multi-million dollar three-bedroom home. They should be excellent communicators and be fluent in English.

About 50 applicants will be shortlisted on March 2 and final 11 candidates will be flown to the island for more interviews from May 3 and the final winner will be announced on May 6.