Seriously the programme Apprentice has actually taught me a lot about life.........

If I get turned down from a job in the future - i know not to be ngative - but I really would be thinking it is their loss!

Because, this is meant to be the best of the best - yet, when you go right back to the basic skils - she was absolutely TERRIBLE

The one that sticks in my mind is when they had to buy art - and then sell it! - but the artists could pick who they sell to

now, if i was a leader i would have wanted
- 1) attraactive art
- 2) cheap art
and then i would have sold it on at large profits - its really not hard

And what does katie do? Starts to bang on about the 'thoughts and emotion' behind the pictures and the 'attitudes demonstrated' and all the other crap -- even alan sugar said himself - she seemd to go into this fancy art expert and actually went Totally off topic and forgot the reason they were there - TO SELL THE ART ...........AND she EVEN had a go at ehr team mate!! when he suggested that she shouldnt have been caring about those things, and should start caring about e.g. the price to buy, the price to sell etc...

and in general she did nothing through out the series, she didnt do anything 'wow' , she didnt contribute anything majorly and she did nothing that was memorable - and on top of that i found her highly irritating as a person.

and yet some how......... she gets offered a place in the final??


That to me just shows what life is like - and life can be a bitch its as simple as that - here with have a talentless woman - who can talk sh*t in the interview 'oh id call that 8/10' - and is actually terrible -- and yet she is on 90k a year - an absolutely huge amount that i bet hardly anyone else is on.

it shows me - dont give up and keep going - and you will get there -- but it also shows me that theres obviously idiots out there, who like employing idiots - and that could put a wall in front of you - if youre looking to progress.
and also it shows me tal;king crap in interviews can get you far --
i know she was not good, i know she was pretty rubbish to have on your team - yet when it comes to interviews, because she can talk the talk, and bull sh*t - she can appear to be really good, appear to be really ruthless (when the reality is far from it)

I guess its just one of those things you have to put up with in life - you are always going to find a boss who is a cock - or someone who isnt talented at all - in a job they shouldnt be in! But thats life!

anyone else agree

Sir Alan was giving her enough rope to hang herself.
He had her sussed and she knew it.

Remember when he found out that Jadine and that other chap were missing their families and had lost heart in the game he sacked them.....he didn't offer them a job like Katie...IIRC all his advisers were against her..

There more to this than meets the eye..see the thread on whether it was all staged..

I think when you really look hard at the people who end up on The Apprentice they are all in it for the wrong reasons.Katie's on 90k a year because she works for a now ex husband.She isn't some high flyer really she got there,it would appear,from the oldest "leg up" in the book. I doubt someone who is sophisticated and intelligent would have made such stupid comments about competitors.If you really were at the top of the game and more to the point if any of them were so talented they would have been picked up years ago by big companies and wouldn't have to make complete tubes out of themselves on national TV.

Katie wasn't terrible. She was very strong on tasks, and probably the best PM of this series. Nick and Margaret had their reservations about her pieces to camera, but were solid on her ability.

She performed especially well in the art task. In order to sell the art they needed to understand it, so as to help create a connection between the art and the buyer. Customers ask questions. You may not like smooching, but that was the strategy the PM picked and Katie delivered. They got the artist she was with. The other artist they wanted, that they failed to get, was the one Katie didn't see.

She didn't actually sell anything - so she's not perfect. Few people did. It was confirmed on You're Fired that the "softly softly" approach was right in the real world and only failed in the artificial environment of the task. Katie herself figured that out, but didn't have time to fix it.

For the same reasons as Syed got so far last year and Paul the year before. The Apprentice isnt really a job interview, its a gimmicky TV show - the producers are looking for entertainment value.

He didn't see it coming and the week after still hadn't sused it out. I cant say any more.

Tell us Adam. We need to know.

My instinct throughout the series was that S'ralan admired Katie Hopkins - he asked for her opinion of other candidates and seemed to enjoy the flirting. I remember Adam saying he thought S'ralan liked her. I can't work out what went on in the boardroom last week but I never swallowed the spin from Nick & other that S'ralan had her sussed and smoked her out. I think she did make a fool out of him with her alleged charms

I felt sorry for SAS after the programme last night - all this guff about how he would have fired her anyway - just didn't ring true. I'd really love to know what really happened.

SAS admitted on that programme that he regretted saying it Katie said herself that she's ruthless

In 'Why I Fired Them' SAS said had Katie not withdrawn he would have changed his decision and fired her there and then.

Katie did NOT make it to the final and WOULD have been fired by SAS, had she not withdrawn. You heard it from SirAlan's mouth!

Katie clearly has a number of excellent business skills, she won twice as project manager and she is very good at negotiations and selling. Although she didn’t get on with everyone in her team, she was very determined and hardworking in the team challenges. She came across as extremely confident and she was good at defending herself in the boardroom.

However, I had not thought she had done well at the interviews. Her answers to the questions about her knowledge of Sir Alan were very poor. She said she didn’t know what motivated Sir Alan, however, given her encounters with him in the board room, I think she should have been able to answer this. In fact I thought she deliberately tried not to do well (so that she wouldn’t get through to the next stage). Sir Alan, however, liked her. He likes confident people who are able to stand up for themselves. He enjoyed the flirting. He thought she had great business skills. That is why he didn’t fire her.

Much as I dislike Katie, to be fair her £90K salary comes not from working for her ex husband's company but from working for the Met Office in Exeter which I presume she got on her own merits.

Oh gosh, is it?

Next you'll be claiming that BB isn't really a reality show, and merely contrived manipulation from the producers.

What on Earth does she do at the Met Office, as a public servant, to earn £90k?

I imagine she's a contractor - charging stupid money to tell businessmen what they should already know. That's the definition of a consultant - smokes and mirros, which is what she was!

The OP is right about her performance in tasks, it really wasn't great. I can't think of one task where she really impressed me and that's the problem I have with her - I can say how good I am all day long but I would expect to have to prove it too!

She is a partner in Met Office Consulting

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/consulting/about.html

What on earth is that?

A consulting company that makes money out of data gleaned as a public service?

I was pretty astonished that he gave her a place. It must have been on gut instinct because as you say, her answers to the questions were weak. Simon and Kristina were clearly the ones who'd done the best out of the interviews. Lohit flatlined with them, and Tre and Katie didn't seem to know what they were signing up for. The two finalists each had one of the interviewers basically give them a straightforward thumbs up, and of the advisors Nick in particular has always seemed to raise fewer question marks about them than Katie.

To be honest, I thought SAS might have put Tre through against advice because he likes firey blokes and Tre did have a strong win/loss record. Katie has shown some skills over the weeks, but she didn't have the kind of flawless record to overlook questions from everyone about whether she wanted the damn job!

I can only assume that SAS was thinking that Simon is a bit young and unreliable, and he could give himself one last throw of the dice with Katie, knowing that Kristina is good enough for the job if Katie wasn't up to/for it.

That or the godawful smarmy flirting made its mark.

[quote=Apricot;15228810]S'ralan QUOTE]

I too can't figure out why Sralan was going to put her in the final.

She didn't display any talent other than Machiavellianism, snobbery, rudeness, intimidation and extreme confidence...none of which would be sufficient for me to employ someone.

Yes, she could bully or intimidate underlings to do her bidding. Failing that she could sleep her way to the top. Seems to have worked for her thus far.

I've come across plenty like her in the workplace, who at the end of the day aren't intelligent, even though I admit they're clever.

I can only think she was some kind of plant to boost ratings.

Sir Alan went right down in my estimation when he even considered putting her in the final. I don't care if it was to boost ratings or what. Who in their right mind would employ her?

Yes, at first I had it completely wrong and thought that she'd got the salary at her husband's company. I hadn't realised she'd been at the Met Office since last September, prior to The Apprentice, but had thought she'd gone there after filming finished.

Never the less, applications would also have asked for current/previous salary to demonstrate the calibre of candidate, so she'd already got a leg up there (no pun etc.)

I bet that 100k for SAS is looking more attractive now she's been fired!

I heard it too..but wouldn't it have been easier just to fire her?