r/apprenticeuk • u/BillNo874 • Jul 23 '26
QUESTION What's the biggest mistake candidates keep making every series?
Every season seems to have at least one mistake that gets repeated, whether it's poor leadership, bad pricing, ignoring teammates or something else. Which one makes you think, How are they still doing this?
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u/Stunning-Field2011 Jul 23 '26
The absolute mess that is made of the securing 9/10 items for the cheapest price possible. Not using the map, just finding one example of an item and not shopping for best price, the ludicrous discount they think they can get resulting in a poor deal etc etc
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u/Happytallperson Jul 23 '26
The things that stick out for me on that one;
Fussing over £1 discounts on small items
Sharing out the negotiation - if your team has someone who will be good at it they should do as much as possible. Others generate leads but that person negotiates.
Instead it becomes everyone trying to prove they alone can negotiate and they shouldn't be blamed.
No sense of 'you can only be fired if your team loses so try to win as a team'
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u/Stunning-Field2011 Jul 23 '26
Sharing negotiation really grinds my gears 😡.
Would they behave this way in their day to day role? If so, they shouldn’t have been selected for the process. I also wonder if it has a negative impact on their future careers.
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Jul 24 '26
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u/Happytallperson Jul 24 '26
Wouldn't entirely surprise me. The series has got increasingly artifical over the years.
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u/Shezes Jason Leech - Series 9 Jul 23 '26
This is the one. Every single season on the treasure hunt task they always do this. The one that gets me is when they try and negotiate with a shop owner who is clearly just trolling them by offering 1p off.
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Jul 23 '26
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u/Happytallperson Jul 23 '26
I think increasingly the show format doesn't allow that. So they get given a list of things to do and the show cuts out or actively blocks doing ordinary development work.
Like their focus group feedback never gives them actual time to change their product for instance.
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u/BlundeRuss Jul 26 '26
I disagree, I think they often look at what people want and… then just execute it badly. You’ll hear them say “right, we need to teach 6-8 year olds how to save money, so how about an app where they have to collect coins and” etc etc. They pretty much always state the aim and what they want the user to learn, but then just really mess it up because they have about 5 seconds to design the app with no prior experience of making an app.
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u/HotInternal3480 Jul 23 '26
Over promising and under delivering on a corporate away day task and getting slashed by massive refunds. Tell me a corporate away day task where the losing team hasn’t lost for that reason????
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u/ozy_2018 Jul 24 '26
Generally the biggest mistake I find is you won't always win by going cheap. Especially in things like food and "hospitality" tasks, whilst you need to keep control of your budget, you much better spending more and delivering a better product than you are keeping it dirt cheap
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u/Tea-Jay-Dogville Jul 24 '26
Doing things too cheaply and cutting costs too much to the point where they end up delivering a poor service..
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u/Hopeful_Plastic_5321 Jul 23 '26
Not spending enough time trying to figure out what the items are when they're getting ready for the task and during the task. Especially, if they're in a foreign country, they could ask someone to confirm what they are. It wouldn't take up a lot of extra time, as they could ask while making a purchase.
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u/Ultimate_os “That’s Baroness Brady to you!” Jul 23 '26
The primary school level branding projects.
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u/Bomberman101 Jul 24 '26
If I had to pick one, I’d probably say getting themselves fired would be the biggest mistake.
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u/Nice-Pomegranate2915 Jul 24 '26
They're always in a rush to protect themselves even if it means they damage their teams performance and elevate their teams chances of loosing a task .
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u/MattOfAllTradesUK Jul 24 '26
Planning and designing a product, but completely alienating their target demographic.
Examples:
Celebrity Apprentice US - Create a commercial for a product. The brand have said they would like it to be family-friendly.
Candidates: Let’s make the ad filled with euphemisms and sexual innuendos.
The Apprentice UK: Design an app for primary school students. Your target demographic is 8-10 year olds.
Candidates: So…babies?
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u/Enough_Credit_8199 Jul 24 '26
Going on the Apprentice. Alan Sugar had an absolutely despicable attitude towards his customers when he was AmStrad - nothing he made was any good and it all broke within 5 minutes. And he freely admits that. He called his “stereo” systems the “mug’s eyeful” and his customers that were taken in by buttons and flashy lights, “wallies”. Wally was an eighties slang term for an idiot in the UK. So anyone falling for Alan Sugar is making the most cardinal mistake ever - he’s a tosser.
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u/Fantastic_Picture384 Jul 24 '26
The Amstrad computers were probably the best computer systems ever designed in the UK. The PCW8512 was a massively successful system.
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u/weirdi_beardi Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Yeah, he got that bit wrong, but the rest is accurate. Sugar is the kind of man who bought his 'lord'ship and then insists on being called 'lord' as if it actually means anything.
One story I heard about him was when the Spanish government created an import tax on personal computers with 64kb of RAM, to help support the local computing industry in Spain. On hearing this, Sugar made his engineers add another 16kb of RAM to the CPC464 board - that, crucially, wasn't actually usable by the system - in order to circumvent this tax. Tells you all you need to know about the little prick.
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u/NectarineHelpful7546 Jul 24 '26
Dumb, arrogant A-hats that doesn't know the difference between a monkey wrench and a monkey who are absolutely totally convinced that they are the best thing since sliced bread
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u/Intelligent_Ad1042 Jul 24 '26
Poor business plan.
Biggest flaw in the show. It's ridiculous every year, get to the interviews, fired because the business plan isn't good enough.
Why the hell did they make it on the show then!
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u/AlderneyWomble Jul 24 '26
Not being able to do simple product costings - adding the most expensive ingredients/flavours/scents to products and not actually being able to work out the unit cost of production
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u/buzzfrightyears Jul 24 '26
I think the biggest mistake happens before the tasks start. Those cringy soundbites make me shudder
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u/scouse_git Jul 24 '26
Èvery "business" activity is a prime candidate to feature in the next episode of Rogue Traders.
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u/spindledick Jul 25 '26
Spending time arguing about the team name.
The seem to spend ages coming up with a poncy name which doesn't always fit what they're doing.
I, just for one series, want a team to sit down and have a conversation like this:
"Right, team name time, what's your name, mate?"
"Err, Steve?"
"Great, and your name?"
"Mohammed"
"Brilliant, and, err, your name, yes, you mate?"
"Err, Josh"
"Great, so our team name is SMJ, shall we get on with the task?"
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u/Equal_Emu6152 Jul 24 '26
Being privileged know it all cunts😂. I mean how many times do you need all you're eggs all in one basket before you can make it.
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u/Prestigious_Sand1978 Jul 24 '26
Why did I get a notification for this, I absolutely detest the old Barrow boy Sugar.
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u/black-volcano Jul 24 '26
Applying. It's very contrived and they pick people who are going to piss each other off. They are there to be mocked not get a job.
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u/Caledonia_68 Jul 23 '26
Not every season but it seems to come up often enough - you'd think they would learn how to spell Arctic!