Member Article

North East recruitment firm points a finger at The Apprentice

The final of BBC2’s Apprentice series last night saw Michelle Dewberry, a 26-year-old telecoms consultant from Hull, walks away with the prize of a six-figure salaried job with Alan Sugar. After 12 gruelling weeks battling it out against Britain’s brightest business hopefuls, the final saw Michelle beat off stiff competition from 28-year-old sales manager Ruth Badger by project managing a team of fired apprentices and staging a lavish party on London’s Tower Bridge.The Apprentice has been a huge ratings success for BBC 2, regularly attracting over four million viewers for its Wednesday night slot and earlier this week winning a Bafta for best feature. The show has proved such an inspiration that North East recruitment firm Nigel Wright has used it as the focus of its latest marketing campaign. The firm, which is headquartered in Newcastle, has just launched an awareness campaign that challenges the show’s methods of recruitment. To prove its point, the company has taken taken a flagship poster site is on Wood Lane, outside the BBC’s headquarters. It features the famous “you’re fired” finger with the strap line “14 Hopefuls, 2 Eagle-Eyed Advisors, 1 Self-made Millionaire, There is an easier way to recruit.” Nigel Wright’s Rachel MacLynn, who has a number of years experience in the testing and assessment of candidates, said: “Alan Sugar uses a selection method known as ‘work simulations’ to assess candidates’ capability and motivation to perform the role of his apprentice. This term refers to a range of exercises that simulate some aspect of the job that will be performed. Work simulation exercises are accurate predictors of future job performance and they also hold the advantage of being perceived by candidates as highly relevant methods of assessment - psychologists refer to this as ‘face validity’.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .