We’ve often read about famous people complaining about being misquoted.  This morning I read an article by Caroline Madden in The Irish Times titled “Things that make an entrepreneur get out of bed every morning”.  Caroline explained that I’d said that Bill Cullen was an insecure entrepreneur whose drive stems “from the grinding poverty of his childhood in the inner-city slums of Summerhill in Dublin”.  I said nothing of the sort!

I asked the question “what makes Bill tick” because all the Apprentices were absolutely adamant that they wanted to work for Bill, and I wanted to know why?  Because in my opinion, if you’re going to work for someone, you should at least be considering the individual you’re going to work for.  I assure you that Bill was thinking hard about what made each and every one of the aspiring apprentices tick… because he wanted the right person!  In my opinion, upward management is just as important as downward management.  This is particularly true in Ireland where there is not the same power-gap that exists in some cultures.  For example, if ‘your superior’ asks you to do something in Korea, you comply!  Not so in Ireland where we question and challenge as a matter of course, so the relationship between Employer and Employee must be symbiotic to function well.

I feel happy with posing the question “what makes Bill tick”, but I wish I hadn’t answered it in the You’re Fired Show.  Clearly some people like Caroline Madden feel free to adapt the story as they see fit.  What makes an Entrepreneur tick?  Well I could guess, but I’m not qualified to answer.  What I am qualified to answer is what makes a driven person tick, and that’s insecurity.  I’d say I’m a pretty confident person, but there’s still that little demon on the shoulder asking those questions  It drives me on every day and I’m sure it drives Bill too.  However, just having insecurity isn’t enough to be successful; in fact that’s the trick.  Coupled with that insecurity is the courage, determination, intelligence, stamina, integrity, work rate and humility to overcome and succeed.

Bill Cullen is a star and to sum him up with the word ‘insecure’ is ridiculous and somewhat rude, because there’s so much more to it than that.  I’ll be much more careful about what I say on live TV again… no wonder TV people (politicians, sports people et al) master the art of saying nothing!

Reference checks

We were provided with CV’s and full application forms for the final five candidates and were asked to take references on them:  Some were good, some were excellent and one in particular was outstanding. I believe viewers can figure out themselves which ones were which. We were also surprised to see Mairead Fleming (Director of Brightwater) down as a reference for Stephen Higgins.

Job Specification

Our first significant task was to take a Job Spec from Bill Cullen.  For me, this is one of the most important parts of any recruitment process.  I always insist on meeting my clients and going through everything with them.  I know what I’m doing and so does everyone in Brightwater.  We understand that only by truly understanding the job (including the company, role and person specifications) and the candidate (that you’ve met) can you expect to do your job professionally.  It was at this stage that I think the problem began.

Bill Cullen was very engaging, but I do think there was a fundamental gap between the premise for the show “The Apprentice” and a job worth €100,000 per annum.  Last year I’d seen Brenda win the show and I thought she was an excellent choice.  She was intelligent, experienced, mature, calm and capable – I believe she’s been a big success, but she couldn’t really be described as an apprentice (Word gives the synonyms as “trainee, beginner, learner, novice”).  I wanted to understand what the job of The Apprentice was.  What would they be doing?  What level of responsibility did they have? Where would they be working?  Would they have staff responsibility?.  Bill wanted to concentrate on the individual’s character traits and explained he’d place the winner into a suitable position.  I left the room and was still a little unclear, was I looking for a trainee, or a person worth €100,000 a year?  Trainees don’t get €100,000 a year!

The Interviews

We were asked to interview the candidates for as long as we needed, with 45 minutes to an hour guideline.  We were asked to be tough and direct.  Push them as hard as we could and observe how they responded under the pressure.  We had their cv’s and application forms, and were then provided with full briefs on each candidate’s task performances to date.

I believe it is important to give a tough, but fair interview.  Start the interview in a friendly, empathetic manner and proceed to ask pertinent questions.  Don’t just accept the person’s answers, probe them e.g. the candidate says “I’m a great Accountant” and you might ask “what evidence do you have to support that”?  Ask lots of open-ended questions (where, why, who, what, when and how) and listen to the answers.  In this case I gave as tough an interview as I’ve ever given in that I didn’t do much empathising.  Still, we did have our moments and found that I liked all three candidates and yes, that includes the now controversial Stephen Higgins!  I was also impressed by them all… but as a trainee, or for a €100,000 a year job?

Client Feedback

I admit, this is the part of the job I like best.  I enjoy people and after understanding their skill set, I enjoy understanding them – what makes them tick (Stephen Higgins understood exactly what I was looking for).  I believe a person’s inner motivations are fundamental to their eventual success, or otherwise.  I’ve heard many customers comment that they really don’t know what they’ve recruited until they’ve been in the job for a few months.  Naturally, a person’s qualifications and experience are the best guides, but by trying to understand the person’s key drivers (their “buttons”) you can achieve a much higher hit rate.  For an inexperienced person (an apprentice) it’s really all about their key drivers as they don’t have much experience.

The four interviewers sat in the Boardroom with Bill, Jackie and Brian and provided our feedback.  Our opinions were slightly divided between Stephen and Geraldine, but unanimous that Steve Rayner would be the best for the role – he was the only one worth €100,000… at the moment!  We then left the room and that was the end of our involvement until the You’re Fired Show, but we were at least put out of our misery and told that Bill had selected Geraldine as the one to fire.

Bill and Jackie – and a few more!

On an aside, I had an hour or two before the show chatting with Bill Cullen and a chance 10 minutes at the end of the Show (as our make-up was coming off!) sitting beside Jackie Lavin.  I found Bill to be engaging, dynamic and not short of a story.  He was remarkably driven, expecting a lot from everyone around him, but with that he seemed to have genuine care for his staff and his acquaintances.  On sight, I‘d found Jackie a little intimidating, but in our short time talking, I found her to be intelligent, friendly and quite likeable.  Our fellow interviewers were Gavin Duffy and Sheena Clohessy.  Sheena was a psychologist who had taken psychological test profiles on each of the candidates before the show started.  Sheena was calm, intelligent and reasonable. She fully believes in psychometric tests and was very able to interpret them in an effective manner.  Gavin was great!  Gavin has a very lively mind, easily bored, but very sharp indeed.  He made me laugh with his take on things.  Mairead is a Director of Brightwater… and I think she’s just the best!

You’re Fired!

The Apprentice Show was followed by the new “You’re Fired” Show.  It provided a more human element to everything.  It allowed us to see behind the scenes and get the fired candidate’s observations on everything, and I found myself truly empathising with the fired candidate.  The upside for us was that it massively increased interest in the whole event, turning The Apprentice into the most watched series in Ireland this year.  Perhaps the only downside for Brightwater was that it somewhat changed the tenor of the event from a Business Show, to an Entertainment Show.

Final Comments

Well done to Screentime ShinAwil, TV3 and everyone connected with the show.  In a year of unprecedented turmoil, it’s been a really great, fun distraction for us all.  After all there are few things people in Ireland enjoy more than business, entertainment and drama – The Apprentice provided it all!

Brightwater are very proud to be associated with The Apprentice television programme and welcomed the opportunity to be involved with Episode 12 which concentrated on the interviews with the final 3 candidates. We were also delighted to be asked to be the recruitment expert on the post-Apprentice programme “You’re Fired”.

While both David Bloch and Mairead Fleming represented Brightwater in Episode 12, the producers of the “The Apprentice” also wanted two other independent interviewers to be involved: Sheena Clohessy, a well known HR expert and Gavin Duffy, a familiar figure from last year’s The Apprentice and this year’s Dragons Den.  Both professional and highly respected individuals with their own businesses, we would like to clarify that they are not employed by Brightwater nor are they associated with Brightwater other than in this programme.

As a respected recruitment consultancy, Brightwater are well aware of HR best practices and understand we have a responsibility to both our clients and our candidates. We would never discriminate against anyone based on personal issues and indeed would not bring personal questions up in regular interviewing processes. However The Apprentice is an entertainment show and all fourteen candidates were fully aware of that at the outset, freely offering up personal information before and during filming of the series.

The actual interviews themselves took place over several hours. Due to time constraints, these interviews were not shown in full and therefore may have seemed out of context. Some of the questions and subsequent replies, however controversial were as a result of information coming up in conversation which the candidates mentioned themselves during the actual interview or had put on their application form. For example Steve Rayner had been open and honest from the start of filming that  he was dyslexic, and a alcoholic and gambler who had been sober for 18 months. He was happy to discuss the issues and was very impressive in the way he handled himself.

We hope this clarifies matters and we would like to state again how excited and proud we are to be part of such an entertaining and vibrant show.