Lies, Damn Lies

I have taken to watching the Apprentice recently and what makes me curious about it is that I wonder how good a task it does of being a fair interview process. For those who don't know the formula, the group of potential employees are split into two groups then set a task of some kind. The group which loses then gets one member fired- Alan Sugar picks out of the team leader (which changes weekly) and their two sub-ordinates. Now this is an incredibly intense interview process, but does it test the teams talents?

Well there are several things... if a team wins, it can be in spite of several of it's members, and while team members are swapped around with relative frequency it is still curious as to whether some escape punishment by fluke. Also a team can lose due to sheer random chance- several times one team has beaten the other by a scant amount.

Second of all, more than ever, this creates a rather bizzare dynamic. That is, you are not necessarily working with the team in mind- you are working with "winning" in mind. Several weeks there appear to have been ganging together of certain people against others to try and get them fired, although it is not explicitly said, theres a lot of bad blood. Still, that is of course what makes it excellent tv. I must admit to having acquired an extreme distate for Katie, although I cannot say who I actually want to win......

posted by Mr K @ 1:19 pm