Global LAR travel opportunity fields few applicants

Only one year's experience required for 12-month role travelling the world

Five reseller vacancies aimed at recent graduates with minimal experience in IT sales have attracted relatively few applicants, even though they involve free accommodation and global travel to Australia, South Africa, the US and Canada.

Paul Davis, managing director of IT recruitment specialist MerlinCorp, rang ChannelWeb in some desperation as he is failing to attract enough candidates for the year-long, "once-in-a-lifetime" roles to an open day on Saturday 31 August.

"I don't understand it," he said. "I would have thought young people would jump at the chance in this economy. These are nice places, many with beautiful beaches."

Ideally, candidates would have a year's experience in IT sales already. The salary is negotiable although Davis says it is likely to be about £25,000pa - well above the average UK wage for a recent graduate.

The jobs are with SoftwareOne, a UK-based global LAR with a £4.2bn market cap and a blue-chip portfolio of vendor partners including IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat and VMware.

The jobs will be focused on selling licensing packages, but Davis stresses that it is a real opportunity with a real salary, as opposed to the very casual sales roles often billed as exciting opportunities in the classifieds.

"And don't forget you get your rent paid with that and travel around the world to a different country every three months," he said.

Networking - "actually having fun," said Davis - is a key part of the role, which will also involve business development and cold calling.

"This is for people who want to travel the world, it's like a gap year, but without ruining your CV with bar jobs or door-to-door sales roles," he said. "And it's not working with a Fred in a Shed company."

Full training in the company's speciality, licensing and software asset management, will be included as well. According to the advertisement, the roles are permanent and full-time even though the initial global travel opportunity is only for one year.

They may even be able to choose in which country to settle down, if local country managers approve.

At the end of each three-month period, they get a week's paid holiday there before moving on to the next country. SoftwareOne promises they will earn an amount equivalent to what sales staff are paid in each of the four countries.

Davis said it looks like 280 people have clicked on the advertisement on MerlinCorp's website by yesterday. Thirty applicants have indicated interest or sent in an application for the five positions but many are not in any way what SoftwareOne is looking for, he added.

"We get more responses to vacancies from people in India looking for roles in England or the UK," Davis said.

Pictured below are a few SoftwareOne staff at a recent event...