150 Candidates Still in the Running for Australia's 'Best Jobs'

150 people from 35 countries have made it through to the next stage of Tourism Australia's 'Best Jobs in the World' competition, with successful candidates submitting video entries from as far afield as Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia and Mexico.

Entries have proved extremely diverse and creative, including one Taste Master applicant 'singing for his supper', a spoof '007' assignment for the Park Ranger role and a candidate for the Chief Funster delivering his entire application in rap.

The United States has provided the highest number of short-listed candidates (33) followed by the UK (23), Australia (17), France (17), Canada (8) and Italy (5).

The best 25 video clips for each of the six jobs were selected from more than 45,000 videos that were submitted; with the 150 short-listed candidates now having two weeks to submit references to support their application.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said it had been an extremely difficult task, sifting through tens of thousands of videos to select the best 150.

"It's already proving one of the hardest jobs in the world judging our 'Best Jobs in the World' competition. The quality of the entries has been amazing, with so many of the candidates doing a really great job of presenting themselves on video," Mr McEvoy said.

"But, just like most other jobs recruitment processes, we want more evidence so we know we're getting the best candidate for each job," he said.

All 150 short-listed videos can be viewed at www.australia.com/bestjobs  or www.australiaworkingholiday/facebook

Based on their original video submission and supporting references, judges will select the 18 strongest candidates (three for each of the six jobs), who will be invited to a final assessment in Australia in mid-June, with the six successful job candidates announced on 21 June 2013.

Tourism Australia's 'Best Jobs in the World' competition is part of a major international marketing push to promote tourism opportunities provided by Australia's Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program. The six 'best jobs' are: Wildlife Caretaker (South  Australia), Chief Funster (New South Wales), Park Ranger (Queensland), Taste Master (Western Australia), Outback Adventurer (Northern Territory) and Lifestyle Photographer (Melbourne, Victoria).

The 'Best Jobs in the World' campaign is supported by Destination NSW, Tourism Northern Territory, Tourism Victoria, Tourism Western Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and South Australian Tourism Commission.

In addition a number of key commercial partners are supporting the campaign, including Virgin Australia, STA Travel, Citibank, DELL, IKEA, Sony Music and Monster.com.