ONE JOB. Fourteen candidates. But how many will have “the liathróidí” that Renault man Bill Cullen is looking for?
Launched yesterday amid recession-defying trays of champagne and canapés, the second series of TV3's The Apprentice, produced by Screentime ShinAwiL, is giving would-be mini-Cullens a short window in which to get their CVs up to date.
Potential candidates have until May 8th to apply for prime time television’s “job interview from hell” at www.tv3.ie/theapprentice.
Having let go 50 people over the past 12 months – 20 per cent of the Glencullen Group – it might seem strange that Ireland's answer to Donald Trump is now advertising. But this is The Apprentice: more heavily edited entertainment juggernaut than verité reflection of the hiring and firing process.
Last year, Screentime ShinAwiL received 1,600 applications in a week. This year, it expects its inbox to be overloaded by the jobs market’s many victims.
“We’re going to get a quality of people that we’ve never seen before on one of these shows,” says Cullen. “These Irish guys, most of them are warriors, you know.”
Unemployed architects, solicitors and IT project managers are not going to turn down the chance of winning a job that comes with a remuneration package of €100,000 a year, he says.
“These legal eagles and project people, they’re all as sharp as a razor. Most of the ones you meet are really sharp.”
But might they actually be too intelligent to make good television – too cute to say anything bitchy enough to boost the ratings?
“I don’t want these wilting flowers in the background. I want them to have liathróidí (balls),” he says, quoting his own boardroom catchphrase.
"I need everyone to give us 120 per cent," he adds, echoing a typical Apprenticecontestant's shameless abandonment of numerical convention.
Last year’s winner, bridal shop owner Brenda Shanahan, did not attend yesterday’s launch in Dublin’s Dylan Hotel. She’s too busy, with “32 projects sitting on her desk”, according to Cullen.
There is still plenty to do, despite the fact that the motor industry has been hit by what he calls “redundo-syndrome”, which will cost up to 10,000 jobs this year.
“People don’t want to buy an 09 car and have it in their driveway when there are three or four people in 100 yards of them who have lost their jobs,” he says.
But The Apprenticeitself creates employment. There are some 25 people in the core production team, according to Larry Bass, executive producer for Screentime, while there could be 70 people on set on any given day.
Filming starts in June, with the show scheduled to air in the autumn. This year’s lead sponsor will be Meteor (replacing Permanent TSB) and additional content in the form of exclusive “mobisodes” will go out over Meteor’s fledgling broadband network.
Candidates who make it past the initial application stage to the group interview stage should choose their words carefully. On no account should they use the seemingly can-do phrase “no problem”. That’s just two of the most negative words in the English language stuck together, Cullen says.
Only positive thinkers – and a few tabloid-friendly “characters” – need apply.
