On September 9, 2015, the first episode of ‘The Apprentice’ will be on French television for the first time. Born in the United States over 10 years ago, the concept of the successful reality show was sold to over 20 countries before the official launch in France. Fourteen candidates will compete for a sales manager position throughout the show.
Founder of Infogrames, Robopolis and CEO at Awabot, Bruno Bonnell is the boss who decides who gets to stay every week after a series of unexpected challenges for the candidates. At the end of the contest, the winner gets a permanent contract for an executive position with a high salary.
Talking about his reasons to participate in such a show, Bruno Bonnell said he wanted to promote leadership and entrepreneurship. “Too often, companies are showed on specific TV channels in a very general yet controversial way, with counterexamples of deceptive bosses. In the end, it doesn’t teach much or educate the audience. A company is mostly a place where people exchange and interact”, he explained.
Awarded Manager of the year in 1995, Bruno Bonnell was eager to share his experience and knowledge and show that success can be based on merit rather than education or background. Such a recruiting method – apart from the fact that it’s reality TV – is very uncommon in France where recruiters still tend to hire the applicants who graduated from the right school or know the right people.
In The Apprentice, the goal is to put the candidates in context and evaluate them in real situations. With new challenges in every episode, the boss can see how the selected professionals manage teams or handle practical tasks such as logistics and invoicing. Bruno Bonnell admitted being impressed with some candidates he would not have bet on in the first place: “It’s really amazing what the candidates were able to do throughout the show. Seeing their energy and desire to succeed and collaborate made me optimistic about the future of our economy”.
He now wants to encourage such a different recruiting process in the future: “We’ve got to think outside of the box when it comes to recruiting and move away from our traditional habits to hire graduates from prestigious business or engineer schools only. Focusing on such profiles is a weakness. Now I want to implement consistent variety and diversity when it comes to selecting candidates.”
Bruno Bonnell wanted to be different from Donald Trump who is the boss in the original show in the U.S.: “I was absolutely against yelling ‘You’re fired’ at the candidates like he does, because it’s not in our culture”. A reminder that cultural adaptation not only applies to reality TV but to recruitment as well.
So if you’re currently in France, be sure to tune in to tomorrow’s first episode of the imported American reality show. You’ll probably be amazed at how far recruitment can take you…
Author: Chloé Delolme
HR Community Management »