The Apprentice

The Apprentice is an NBC reality TV show hosted by real estate tycoon, businessman, and television personality Donald Trump as sixteen to eighteen business people undergo what’s referred to as “The Ultimate Job Interview,” with Trump as the interviewer. The entrepreneurs engage in an elimination-style competition, the prize of which is a $250,000 contract to run one of Trump’s companies. The contestants typically have backgrounds in fields like real estate, sales, marketing, or management, and they must all live together during the competition, as they build both their skills and their relationships. At the end of the challenges, usually performed in teams with a project manager at the head, their performances are evaluated in a boardroom where Trump has the final say about who remains and who gets told, famously, “You’re fired.” Notable contestants and winners had business and reality television careers launches from the show, including Bachelor Bill Rancic, Klly Perdew, Kendra Todd, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, who’s appeared on more than 20 reality shows, and celebrity Apprentice winners Piers Morgan, Joan Rivers, and Bret Michaels. Other versions of the show include The Apprentice: UK and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, with Stewart taking Trump’s place as head of the boardroom and employing a different style of conducting the competition, as well as seasons of the show where all the contestants were celebrities, titled Celebrity Apprentice. MORE