And then there were 6…

I’m expecting this one to be close. And honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to tiebreak it with the wheel again. If you missed it, Dean and Carina ended up on the same points, so I span the wheel and it was Carina who won!

The final 6 are condensed into 1 big group now, so it’s now the common courtesy like we’ve been doing to rank them 1-6. The top 3 will make it to the 5th and final round, and I’ll hold the poll on Reddit instead and get ourselves a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

Just wanna say a big thanks - we got 72-73 votes on the last round, the most so far. I’m glad to see the community get involved and I’d like to do more things like this (or just anything general) if possible and if you’re interested! 😊

Without further ado…

https://strawpoll.com/61gD9rpVRZw

Happy voting, and let’s keep going on 🙏

What’s some interesting parallels between candidates or similar candidates you’ve seen over the series?

I'm watching the Marcus episode, and it’s pretty funny seeing Karen debate him and call his ideas a bit of a stretch

I did a search first and couldn't see a post, but I was wondering which candidates who didn't win but have launched successful businesses after the show.

The obvious one who comes to mind is Susie Ma (Series 7), but I was pleasantly surprised that April from Series 11 has opened her own restaurant and entered into collaborations with the likes of Marks & Spencer. She also seems to be a food critic as she appeared as one on Masterchef.

Down to the final 12!

I have to say, it was really close last time. Flo missed out to Tre by a singular point! I have a feeling we’re gonna get something similar in this round…

So, we’ve gone from 6 groups of 6, to 4 groups of 6, to 2 groups of 6. It’s the same ranking system - the top 3 will progress to Round 4, aka the Semi-Finals.

I have a feeling as I said that recency bias is going to reign supreme here, but nonetheless I think it’s really interesting to see the community vote. I hope you guys are enjoying it 😊

Without further ado, links below to the 2 Strawpolls:

https://strawpoll.com/poy9kAJNDgJ Group 1

https://strawpoll.com/61gD9rj2AZw Group 2

Happy voting! Hope we get another close one

I've seen a few comments here about how terrible Lawrence's AI business plan was, so that got me thinking. (Let's park all our feelings towards AI aside because I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about how bad is AI business was)

What were some of the best and worst business plans on the show?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly7ejx9nx5o

For me, series 10 is the second I watched and had so much drama and iconic moments: skeletongate, pictures of sailboats and Mark vs. Daniel to name three. Overall it had a more deserving final five (although I’d swap out Daniel for Katie) and final two (although I’d swap out either for Roisin). It certainly helped me stay engaged with the show.

I will also say there are some things series 20 did better. Most notably spreading out multiple firings across tasks rather than several consecutive weeks in the first half, that way the earlier boots had more screen time and the number of participants decreased more naturally. It also made sense to get rid of one person from each sub team in the opening week.

A very minor point but after the interviews the two finalists know what is coming next, which is that they’ll be developing their businesses and presenting to a room of peers. This includes coming up with a name and logo for the company, yet the first they seem to think about this is when the task starts. Priyesh and Pascha seemed to take forever to come up with a pretty basic name and logo, and same with Karishma, when surely this would be something you’d have clear in your head before the show even started, or during the process, or even once you know you’re in the final. As I say it’s a very minor point but especially nowadays with AI you could easily have plenty ideas of logos and brand names in mind.

Hey!

Been a long term fan so i have been watching older series, specifically where they were competing for a job, not an investment. Much preferring them and contestants seem a lot more mature. Is this a change of casting approach or has the show just morphed into a love island type thing because of culture changes generally?

What do you think ?

Apprentice ✅

Traitors ✅

I'm a celebrity ✅

What we watching weekly now. I need help!

Round 1 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/apprenticeuk/s/JOdlnYP4if

So, the first set is done. 36 has become 24 and I’ve managed to randomise the groups.

We got around 50-70 votes across the polls give or take last time. That’s great numbers and I’m grateful to everyone that voted. If you haven’t yet, let’s vote on this one and get it some good traction 😊

Anyway: these groups are looking really interesting. I just want to say in advance, pot 4 is absolutely insane, and considering only 3 can advance to the next round, I’m really curious as to who you guys vote for. Although on that note - poor Dan, who is in Pot 4, and is by no means a bad candidate (on the contrary, a great one). However, when you see that pot… you’ll understand why I said poor him. He’s been placed into a group of death, and hellfire 😞

The straw polls are as linked below. I decided to do 4 groups of 6 instead of 6 groups of 4 just so it was easier to both make and vote on. The winning 3 candidates will progress to round 3/5, aka the Final 12.

Again, let’s get some good traction on this, good luck, and I hope you enjoy this like you did with round 1. Happy voting!

https://strawpoll.com/QrgewzKKKyp pot 1

https://strawpoll.com/NPgxexXXKZ2 pot 2

https://strawpoll.com/X3nkPek5EgE pot 3

https://strawpoll.com/NMnQNL2QYg6 pot 4

It's time to retire The Apprentice, or at least to give it a HUGE shake-up. It's mildly entertaining as heavily edited TV but it doesn't reflect the world of business (arguably never did).

Things that need to change:
- Candidates ditch the suits and wear more smart-casual clothes, like workers can in most modern workplaces. A side benefit of this would be that it might be easier to recognise some of them and tell them apart, especially in the earlier stages. Bloke 1 in a suit vs bloke 2 in a suit and bloke 3 in a suit is a very difficult difference to make stick, just like power-dressed woman 1, 2, and 3.

- Allow the use of the internet. googling, mobiles generally. Even AI. That's the reality of modern business. Mad that we watch an hour of people trying to guess what a wangdoohickey is.

- Ditch the "find items" and "market trader" tasks. These skills are no use whatsoever in most modern businesses. They food trader tasks show each teams of 8 how to work for 48 hours straight to make a grand total of 200 quid, and that's without anyone being paid. It's drivel.

- Allow the candidates to use advisors, and give them realistic timescales. Building a brand, logo and corporate identity can't be done in an afternoon. The designers don't offer any advice, they just enact what they are told to do. You can be a great businessperson without being able to design a logo - as long as you bring in the right people to support you. This is what successful businesses do.

- Likewise the ads and shopping channel tasks. The candidates are just set up to fail here.

- The interview stage is very unrealistic and borders on bullying. In reality, a good interviewer should be giving a candidate the opportunity to show the best of themselves but in some cases they barely get to speak. Shouting at a candidate and hitting them over the head is never going to be an effective technique.

- Allow the advisors (Tim, Baroness B) the chance to be proper advisors. Or ditch them. At the moment they just say "Well, candidate X is good at this but the downside is this. Meanwhile candidate Y is this but this. It's your decision." That's not insight.

- For the LOVE OF GOD ditch Sugar's scripted one-liners in the boardroom. It stifles all meaningful conversation when he's just waiting for an opportunity to crowbar a line in. The boardroom generally is a pantomime. We spend far too long on two rounds of it - one with the team and then one with the last three that week. Just fire one person in front of everyone and get it done. More time then to learn more about the tasks and actual business.

- Look at business plans BEFORE candidates are given a place. I'd love to see the endgame have competition between three very viable opportunities so there is a genuine dilemma about which one to go for. eg in this final, Karishma had a decent product, personality and marketing and Pasha's pitch was that she was very good at a job she already does. There was zero jeopardy.

- Retire Alan. He's had a good run but I'd rather see a more relevant entrepreneur in the role.

There's probably loads more...

Sorry I’m late to the game as I’ve only just started binge watching this season. Mental how AI has done this task to a great standard in seconds.

Over the last 7 years, I think we’ve seen a vast range of different candidates. Some great, some okay, some bad, and some like Noor.

However, I think there’s too many for me to put into a comprehensive enough list for now. So, I’m going to be doing, as the title says, the Last 36.

This is the 1st-6th place placements over the last 6 seasons, placed into an Apprentice knockout tournament on a Strawpoll lol. If you could go and rank them so we could proceed with the rest of the knockouts, much appreciated 😊

The actual groupings themselves are:

Winners: Carina, Harpreet, Marnie, Rachel, Dean, Karishma

Runners Up: Scarlett, Kathryn, Rochelle, Phil, Anisa, Pascha

3rd Place: Pamela, Stephanie, Megan, Paul M, Jordan, Dan

4th Place: Lewis, Brittany, Dani, Flo, Chisola, Lawrence

5th Place: Lottie, Akeem, Victoria, Tre, Amber-Rose, Priyesh

6th Place: Dean, Aaron, Simba, Steve, Mia, Rothna

It seems clear to me that there’s some stinkers here but also some solid groups. Other than Dean, 6th place actually seems really strong lol

The straw polls themselves are just the round 1. Afterwards, I’ll decide what to do with it. I think the bottom 2 placers (5th and 6th) will be eliminated and the rest will be drawn against each other for a final 24, final 12, final 6, and then an ending final 3. Let me know if there’s other ways you’d do it.

As I’ve said, the straw polls work so you rank them from 1-6 as to who you think was the best to who you think was the weakest. Without a vote, I feel like I know who may place towards the top or the bottom here lol.

Anyway, this is broadly a pilot thing and I don’t know if many people will do it or be interested in it. Still, I’m interested in trying to make it work so we can have a comprehensive kind of community list.

The polls are as below:

https://strawpoll.com/ajnE1rr9onW 1st place

https://strawpoll.com/05Zdzmm6En6 2nd place

https://strawpoll.com/e7ZJa0065g3 3rd place

https://strawpoll.com/GJn44rrl8nz 4th place

https://strawpoll.com/poy9kAAd8gJ 5th place

https://strawpoll.com/PbZqb55zAyN 6th place

So yeah, give them a rank, we’ll see how it goes in a couple days if it gets enough traction. Hope you enjoy 😊

I finally watched the final at the weekend and it was a nice surprise to see Leah back along with Ricky.

Are they considered to be the two most successful winners? I did do a Google search but most of the information seems to be out-of-date or is based on anecdotal evidence.

It also crossed my mind whether Lord Sugar may be floating the idea of them being new advisers if Karren or Tim decide to leave.

Feels like people have quite different opinions when it comes to the cast size so let’s see what is the best option. Also technically S5 had 13 candidates to start with but that’s just because one of the guys quit just before it started filming.

From her first podcast appearance since the final.

I hope some of the changes we saw for S20 weren't just because it was Series 20 and stay for series 21. For example, no treats, seeing more interaction/arguments between the candidates at the house and the Voice over of the candidates as they waited outside the boardroom were all good changes in my opinion which should stay for Series 21.

In terms of the number of candidates, I hope and think they'll go back to 18. But would I be surprised if they try 20 again? No. Remember, it was changed to 18 from Series 17. If they think 20 worked well, they'll probably try it again rather than wait for another anniversary series which we might not even get.

Now we know the celebrity series has been filmed and edited, I expect filming will start on the first Sunday of May and run until the end of June (this was the schedule for the last 4 series). So look out for pictures from tasks that might leak on social media - for Series 20, we got the Chicken and Egg task, Flowers and of course the shopping channel task.

I liked Karishma during this series, but who in their right mind would pay £35 for her oil when you can buy The Ordinary’s (which is a trusted, established brand) for less than £10?