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The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse

By Jim Symcox on Apr 6, 2009 in Apprentice Series 5, Series 4, Sir Alan Sugar, The Apprentice, The Apprentice 2009

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

To many The Apprentice is looked upon purely as a form of entertainment for all us unwashed masses.

In fact on the BBC Apprentice forums someone has (with a little tongue in cheek) suggested that The Apprentice is unfair and good bosses would train their apprentices before testing them in the way Sir Alan does.

In fact they make the point that this whole show is really a form of abuse as any “good boss” wouldn’t go to the lengths shown in the show.

It’s a good point.

However, as Sir Alan notes in his introduction this whole series is a job interview. That means he’s not training the candidates for the job of Apprentice. He’s seeing whether they have what it takes to be The Apprentice.

The Apprentice Testing Times

If you want to find out whether your new recruit can undertake a range of business tasks and still come up smiling any business would be pleased to have seen whether their candidate could.

If you look at the first few of last year’s tasks they are pretty representative of the type of tasks the Apprentices are set.

Post	Task	What It Tests
A Fishy Start To The Apprentice	Running a fish stall in a market	Price setting, attention to detail, management of a stall
The Apprentice Jenny Celerier, Another Katie?	Running an industrial laundry	Getting sales, creating a system to deliver service to the right customer!
The Apprentices Try To Curry Favour With Sir Alan	Running a pub/restaurant	Organising roles, checking costs, creativity, advertising
The Apprentice: Ice Cream Wars At A Cinema Near You	Creating and selling new ice cream flavours	Creativity, task management, market research, selling
The Apprentice – Hot Shots They’re Not!	Setting up and running a photo shoot in a mall	Management, co-ordination, selling, creativity
The Apprentice Leave Their Brains In A Jar Outside Their Door	Creating a greeting card and selling to a wholesaler	creativity, market research, selling

As you can see most of the tasks are testing how the teams are managed, how they go about getting customers, how they make a profit and the ability to sell themselves.

As the tasks continue each week it starts to become pretty clear as to who can cope under pressure. Which ones are able to manage their team effectively and bring in the profits. And also who is a team player and doesn’t always try and wriggle out of blame and/or out of work.

So in reality the Apprentice is a very entertaining and pretty effective method for sorting through your application pile!