Danish job portal overwhelmed by applicants after royal government negotiator April Fool’s joke

A satirical job listing for a “royal (wise) investigator” role—mocking Denmark’s ongoing government formation talks—flooded Danish job portal Jobindex with inquiries on Wednesday, forcing the site to remove the posting after some applicants took it seriously, DR reports.

The fake listing, titled “Become a royal (wise) investigator – the nation needs a miracle”, parodied the role of kongelig undersøger (royal investigator), currently held by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as she negotiates a new coalition government. The ad claimed applicants should ideally be “colour-blind to avoid distraction by whether party colours clash” and able to “hit the number 90 [seats] no matter what it takes.”

Payment, it joked, would depend on the final coalition—potentially in “mackerel sandwiches or hand soap”—with interviews scheduled for Store Bededag (Great Prayer Day, a Danish public holiday) and a deadline of April 1.

Thomas Røn Larsen, deputy director of Jobindex, said the portal’s phones “rang off the hook” as users—some frustrated they couldn’t submit applications—called to inquire. “People genuinely believed it was a real position,” Larsen told Ritzau, explaining the listing was removed around 11 a.m. to “avoid confusion.” The prank had been live since midnight.

Jobindex had hoped the April 1 deadline would signal the joke, but Larsen acknowledged some missed the cue: “We had to shut down the application button because people were calling, saying they really wanted to apply but couldn’t get through.”