To devise,test,and write up a cookery book,design the layout,prepare a presentation etc etc etc would take a team of experienced professionals many weeks. Lord Suggs expects a team of schoolkids to do it in two days.
Then he sneers at them because one with dyslexia was the person responsible for the spelling.
Some of the tasks he sets are ridiculous for a bunch of schoolkids.The junior apprentice show is part of the TV reality show scenario of making fun/running down the contestants for the amusement of the viewers.

Well, yes. All the tasks in all the Apprentice series (either adult or young) are patently ridiculous. Come up with an innovative product in two days? Create an advertising campaign? Sell snow to Eskimos?

You're right, the whole point of the show is entertainment and to occasionally impart a lesson about business (usually given by Sugar with the benefit of hindsight to suit the task result), but the latter is very much a secondary concern.

Having said that, the tasks have some - not much, but some - in terms of rooting out strong candidates from makeweights. The ability to buy and sell, to pitch to potential customers, defend one's own corner, work well in teams or to make good common sense decisions based on research or gut feel are fairly universal in business. It's just that 'real' people have more time, money and expertise with which to make decisions in their jobs. The quality of the output may be less (and often propped up by experts who do most of the hard work for the teams, like the publishing house in this task), but it's about testing the candidates' ability to work the process.

Besides, it would be much less 'fun' if the teams had enough time and expertise to do a competent job, right?

Its a show. It would take people weeks to create a new piece of gym equipment, it would take weeks to come up with an ad campaign for a brand of pet food. When you apply for the show, you expect criticism for poor performances in tasks.

I do have a certain degree of sympathy for Alice and her dyslexia, but it wouldn't have been particularly hard for anyone on the sub-team of three to run the information through a spell check?
I was less impressed with Ashleigh yesterday over the spelling mistakes. "I'm bad at spelling isn't an excuse as far as I'm concerned".

Quite. As excuses go, it ranks up there with "sir, the dog ate my homework" or "my excuse for being crap is that I'm a bit crap".

Has nobody heard of using a dictionary!!! Jeez.

The spelling thing was ridiculous. Publishers use editors who are trained to spot any spelling, grammar mistakes before any book is published.

What's "rong wiv" Spellcheck?

All they really had to do was come up with the concept, ask a chef to make up 3 recipes for them, direct a photographer in taking pics of the food, and direct a designer on how the book should look. It doesn't seem like a huge amount of work for 6 or 7 people in 2 teams to do in 2 days.

Our company just did an assessment day for pre interviews. The applicants had to build bridges out of paper and judge who should go on a life raft after a plane crash. These are both silly things which have nothing to do with my job description but they told us a hell of a lot about the candidates.

The candidates basically get an opportunity to show how well they have grasped the task and how much effort they can put in if they're weaker at something, and mostly how well they can contribute to the team. If they do well at those three things, even if they lose the task then view usually won't be fired.

omg not the life raft test (aka the balloon game - who do u throw overboard).....done that too many times in training sessions....last time i opted out and said id draw names out of a hat cos there are always arguments for and against all the candidates.......dunno why people still do that one


btw a spell checker would not pick up rashes of bacon - hence the need for proof reading. Bet all the kids got A stars in English though.