With Italian unemployment hovering at around 11 per cent, recruiters at the Bank of Italy are used sifting through hundreds of applications to fill a vacancy. 

But even they were bowled over after a call to fill 30 junior banking posts saw them receive an eye-popping 85,000 applications - the equivalent of 2,800 for each vacancy. 

With competition tight, only those with first-class degrees and an impeccable CV made it to the next selection round. That still left 8,000 applicants fishing for one of 30 jobs - 266 candidates per vacancy. 

These 8,000 must now sit a multiple choice test, with the 300 best-scoring applicants being invited for an interview. 

Not that the work on offer, as deputy assistants on a €28,000 annual salary, will require too many academic skills. Successful candidates will go on to, among other things, feed banknotes into a machine to check whether they are counterfeit. 

But with the economy sluggish and unemployment high, landing a secured job at the Bank of Italy is already reward enough. The lucky 30 selected to fill the roles can also look forward to healthy earning prospects - according to a study, the Bank of Italy is among the country's best-paying employers.