Sugar's Juniors

It’s that time of year again for the Lord himself to find his teenager apprentice. The series begins tonight on BBC1 at 9pm. Don’t worry if you miss it, there’s always BBC iPlayer – one of BBC’s extremely useful innovations! 

The Apprentice is designed to test individuals' business skills, ideas, knowledge and their innovative capabilities in a number of tasks that vary each week. The candidates are split into two teams, each with their own mentor; either Karren or Nick. Every week, their performance in tasks is monitored by their mentor and receive feedback in the dreaded boardroom where all is revealed. The winning team receive a treat of Sugar's choice whilst the losing team sit in a café with their hot drinks discussing where it all went wrong; continuously shifting the blame on each other before facing the boardroom yet again. Each week one candidate "Get's fired" until the final where Sugar is left to pick his young apprentice from the two remaining.

Last year’s winner, Arjun Rajyagor, was described as the ‘maths wiz kid’. He won £25,000 to launch a business career of his choice, with support and control from Lord Sugar. According to Sugar he had “that natural business flair combined with intelligence” that “you can’t learn”. Arjun runs a computer repair business from home and is currently at college studying A Levels. He has been offered a place at Oxford University to study engineering science. He will receive his prize when he wishes to undertake his business venture - once approved by the Lord! (BBC News, Accessed 24/10/11).

This year’s candidates: Harry Hitchens, Karren Brady, Lord Sugar, Nick Hewer, Lewis Roman, Lizzie Magee, James McCullagh, Harry Maxwell, Zara Brownless, Mahamed Awale, Hannah Richards, Hayley Forrester, Ben Fowler, Haya Al Dlame and Gbemi Okunola.

I’m lucky enough to know Hayley Forrester so will hopefully be able to interview her at some point during this blog to report on her experiences. It’s all about who you know in the business world; networking is vital.

Towards the end of this completed view, I will compose an overview of the series.

References:

BBC News [online], Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10288220 BBC Junior Apprentice won by Arjun Rajyagor (Accessed: 24th October 2011)

BBC Press Releases [online], Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/10_october/18/young_apprentice.shtml Young Apprentice: Introduction (Accessed: 24th October 2011)