Flesh-eating camel-spiders and 100ft dust storms are not deterring daredevil jobseekers applying in their thousands to rebuild war-shattered Iraq.

Jim Ridings, director of global staffing for Californian building firm Parsons Corporation, currently overseeing a combined $1.8bn project to rebuild the country, admitted that the firm didn’t perform psychological profiling on its candidates.

“If we did, we wouldn’t have any people at all!” he told delegates at the Global Recruiting Forum event in Brussels earlier this month, adding that endurance and resilience were key requirements.

Instead of corporate-style psychometric tests, candidates attend a ‘boot camp’ in Pasadena, California, where they are given extensive physical training.

The camp recreates the unforgiving conditions workers will face in Iraq, and gives cultural and safety advice.

Despite the notoriously hostile conditions, the company had received 35,000 applications to work in Iraq, and has placed more than 590 staff.

Once in Iraq, the HR professionals’ biggest challenge is to stop staff putting in extra hours.

Ron Baulding, Parsons HR manager in Baghdad & Iraq, admitted the building firm has raised the average working week to 84 hours by employee demand.

“Workers want long hours. There’s literally nothing else to do there,” said Baulding.

The internet is also a key recruitment tool for the company.

“If we’re not sure about a candidate, we do a Google search on them,” said Ridings.

“It’s the most effective way of keeping track of what people have been up to.”