I re-watched the first-ever episode of The Apprentice – it's never been about business

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A bunch of overconfident chancers trying their very hardest to impress an all-powerful overlord? This has hardly changed since 2005 ✒️ emilyrbakes

star; and Matthew Palmer because he’s very tall and had an off-kilter fashion sense .

The task was refreshingly simple: buy a load of flowers and flog them on a market. Nowadays they’re given strangely specific challenges which are doomed and likely designed to fail. Makes for good TV though. They were stalked by two icons of noughties television – Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford, both of whom have since left the show – who didn’t utter a word for the first half hour and even then, weren’t particularly enlightening.

In a tradition that has stood the test of time, the teams were split into boys and girls, though the gender-based competitiveness was much more tangible than in current episodes; rather than impress Lord Sugar, the candidates were focused on getting one over on each other. The episode was morethan business competition, with plenty of attention given to the candidates’ fights in their house share.

While the boys opted for door-to-door sales, targeting the “bored rich housewives of Islington”, the girls leaned into the old adage of “sex sells”, a strategy today’s candidates wouldn’t dream of employing. Probably.

 

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emilyrbakes Its worse than that because some of those interview techniques have now found their way into job interviews where folk are slated and essentially left shaken. This programme has destroyed folks' confidence and should be banned. BBC

emilyrbakes Agree. The Apprentice is now a truly awful and out of date concept. Should have been axed years ago … but the BBC will always bow down to the ‘questionable’ members of the House Of Lords 😏

emilyrbakes I never watch it and from the trailers and snippets that I’ve seen, it looks contrived and ridiculous. As an ex apprentice and apprentice trainer, this programme is nothing like an apprenticeship, but perhaps it’s not supposed to be?

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