TV3's The Apprentice, Bill Cullen & Brightwater

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lazing

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I am making a complaint against “the Apprentice” screened on TV3 on Tuesday (8th Dec ‘09). I additionally am complaining about Brightwater Recruitment, which has been involved throughout the series, and also to Bill Cullen who presided over the interview process.

I am a periodic candidate for interview, and I would be appalled to be treated in a manner similar to that which the contestants on the Apprentice were treated. Given this is a popularly watched programme, and we are now in a recession, I believe the programme (with Brightwater Recruitment's participation) may set a precedent as to how candidates can be interviewed in the future.

As I understand it the Employment Equality Acts 1998 and 2004 prohibit discrimination in recruitment and employment generally on nine grounds: an individual's sex, marital status, religion, age, race, disability, family status, sexual orientation or membership of the traveller community.

I believe Tuesday's programme breeched these Acts on a number of grounds, including, but not restricted to:
§ Pressing an individual to answer personal questions about her family background
§ Pressing and prying an individual after he said the matter was personal
§ Discrimination in terms of a person’s disability (dyslexia and alcoholism) - the interviewer discriminated by assuming that dyslexia (or alcoholism) would be an issue (or a “very high risk”) rather than asking the candidate if they themselves believe it would impact on their job.
§ Asking questions about the candidate’s family and implying the candidate was selfish to go for a job in Dublin.
§ Making reference to a candidates gender throughout an interview

The Apprentice purports to be a series about hiring a business candidate. Brightwater have been intimately involved throughout the series. I would have thought that if the "entertainment" excuse was being used, reference would have been made to the inappropriateness of the questioning.

I believe the programme (and Brightwater) should issue an apology and clarification in the next episode. I believe someone from the Equality Authority should be on the show and confirm the position / penalties to organisations which discriminate during an interview process. Lastly I believe that the three interview candidates themselves should receive legal advice as to whether they were being discriminated against.

In the past the programme has taken liberties by calling a candidate a “bully” on national television. I believe on Tuesday’s programme it overstepped the mark.


I have sent this to relevant parties including:
dublin@brightwater.ie
http://www.meteor.ie/contact_us/contact_form/
info@tv3.ie
http://www.goldenapples.ie/contact/index.htm
info@equality.ie
info@bci.ie
 
Last edited:
marshmallow said:
Oh for crying out loud ... it's a TV programme!
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Its an entertainment TV show. presumably all the candidates sign an agreement prior to taking part, so they know what they are getting into.

I only watched a bit of this programme once, its not my cup of tea. From the bit I saw I deduced that in real life I wouldnt want to work for an employer like this.
 
STEINER said:
Its an entertainment TV show. presumably all the candidates sign an agreement prior to taking part, so they know what they are getting into.
Click to expand...

You can't signed away your legal rights.

Someone was rejected from a job becuase of an interview process that as described above broke a list of employment legislation.
 
It would have been very interesting to see what would happen if one of the candidates had the cojones to challenge the very poor interviewing practices shown on the show. There is indeed a risk that other interviewers will follow the example shown on the show.

OP - if you haven't already done so, get your complaint into the BAI and cc the Equality Authority.
 
God lads I hope ye don't ruin it for next year now.

I only saw bits of last night so can't comment on last nights show but I did think that referring to Steve as a bully a few weeks ago was disgraceful.

Steve to win.
 
I think the Broadcasting commission of Ireland may look after this, not up to much from what I hear though, try www.bci.ie

To a point I agree with the OP. Bullying in the workplace seems to be rife at the moment. I do believe that programmes like these cause some people to think that they can just be fired on the whim of their employer, particularly during a recession.

On a further note having watched Tuesday night's show the 4 interviewers pandering to Bill was quite nauseating.
 
Think this is silly, its obvious to any eejit that the programme is no way intended to replicate a real-life situation. In real life job applications you are not put in a house, divided into teams and asked to design chocolate bars! Agree with marshmalow, why all the po-faced responses to what is a entertainment show?
 
I appreciate everyone's feedback:
- I've really enjoyed the show other than this issue
- I wouldn't consider myself particularly PC or easily offended
- I fully appreciate it is a tv entertainment show
- As it happens I am not Geraldine (or Aoiffe!)

Jobs are hard to come by now. These people are competing for a job (1-year contract as I understand it), and it's on national tv. Perhaps the producers, etc. have some duty of care to the participants. It's not quite UK's big brother with Shelpa Shetty, but it is a form of discrimination. I would have been more than happy if they had made an even minor reference to this during / after the show.
 
[broken link removed]

Here is the complaints section for the bai, cheers complainer and jhegarty.
 
Watching it now. It's really cringeworthy. It's a bit disappointing because I thoroughly enjoyed the other episodes. Really, it's the interviewers that are bulling IMO. Delighted you complained, lazing.
 
Isn't it just a fancy game show? would be surprised if real life employment law applied.
 
Its TV - and nothing is real or as it seems in TV land. Its an entertainment show, edited accordingly ..... don't let it get to you. Treat it the same as X-factor - its all about getting ratings.
 
I don't think that a lot of the backbiting, shouting down other people's ideas, overestimating your own abilities and selling your team mates up the river would be considered best practice either. It's a TV show and the people competing are well aware that they're playing a game, not taking part in a real life interview situation. I agree that those interviews last night would be completely illegal in a normal work situation, but this is more of a game show scenario and I suppose anything goes.
 
Hated BC saying to Steve that if he gave him the job, he'd have him 24/7 - talk about the worst way to motivate someone to work harder, FFS its only €100K salary Bill, not €1 million.
 
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