What ‘Apprentice 2’ Applicants Should Have Learned

There are other aspects of this as well. If you are the Project Manager, you should never let people know you’re planning to take them to the Boardroom. Doing so only gives them a chance to get their stories straight and figure out ways to attack you. For example, Ereka told Nick and Bill that she would be taking them. Guess who was sent packing? Hint: It wasn’t a guy.

Meanwhile, Omarosa had not told Jessie or Heidi that she planned to take them to the Boardroom, and both of them kissed up to her during the initial phase, apparently in hopes they wouldn’t be chosen. Surprise! They were, and Heidi ended up suddenly changing her tune about Omarosa, which only made the way she had kissed up earlier look worse. Of course, if Omarosa had warned them that she was taking them, she might have gotten hit right from the start.

One final thought: If you let people know who you will be taking, it also gives those who won’t be going the freedom to say whatever they want. When Ereka told Bill and Nick they would be going, what if Katrina had said something that made Ereka want to change her mind? It would not have looked good and Katrina could have accused her of stabbing her in the back.

7) Play Well With Others, But Stay Professional

Playing well with others has two sides to it – positive and negative. First, let’s go over the negative.

Yes, this is a competition. Yes, there can only be one winner. But don’t come in with the “I’m not here to make friends” attitude. We’ve seen it before – it’s the standard line of the reality show villain. And even if you aren’t quite that bad, you cannot allow yourself to be controlled by anger. This is not to say you cannot ever show anger. Certainly, if you are accused of something you didn’t do, you need to show some anger and be appalled that anybody would ever say such a thing about you. But you need to do it in a calculating manner. You need to control your anger; you can’t allow your anger to control you. If you take either the villain attitude or you can’t control your anger, your fellow contestants might not be the ones who will vote you off, but they can certainly make life miserable for you.

Take Omarosa (no, really, take her – please!). She was so obnoxious that people didn’t want to be teamed up with her. She let her opinion of the other players get in the way, when she'd have been better served by keeping her mouth shut a little more often. She let her emotions control her and she had the bad “villain” attitude as well – it was a double-whammy. In response, blame was cast on her whenever possible (that’s not to say she didn’t deserve it, because she certainly did). Eventually, it was the end for her. Trump doesn’t need somebody who will cause tension and problems in the ranks. You have to remember that this is not just a competition for a prize, but a job application. “Winning” means being able to do the job, and if you can’t get along with people, that’s a big strike against you.

If, however, you at least appear to be nice to people, they are less likely to blame you for things, less likely to single you out for bad tasks, and less likely to call you into the Boardroom. However, you can’t be so nice that you appear to be a kindergarten teacher. Jessie was too nice, and people didn’t respect her. There is a fine line.

The other side of playing well with others deals with the most positive emotions, like friendship. Yes, you will likely make friends (unless, as we’ve discussed, you’re Omarosa). But you need to understand that only one person can win. Troy and Kwame knew this, and they agreed that if one of them needed to bring the other into the Boardroom, so be it – may the best man win! Katrina and Ereka didn’t know it – Ereka let Katrina escape the Boardroom because of their friendship, and Trump knew it. Remember his “Your girlfriend Ereka just gave you a break” comment. Ereka ended up going home.

8) Focus on the Long-Term

Short-term thinking may win you individual challenges. But winning the challenges may not mean you win the show – just ask Amy. The challenges are short-term, the job is long-term. Always keep that in mind.

So, what does that mean? Well, for one thing, sex sells, but it also could mean you’ve sold out. Trump is not looking for the Shooters Girls. Do you see Carolyn walking around in a too-tight t-shirt and a mini-skirt?

Many of the challenges are one-shot deals, where you try to make the most money and then move on. But we saw that some challenges later in the show actually built upon the earlier ones, such as the rickshaw challenge in which Versacorp got previous companies they’d worked with to buy ads. And Nick was thinking along the right lines when he refunded the money of a company whose ads had fallen off. If his team had lost because of that, would they have held him responsible? Maybe. But I’d like to think that Trump would have seen that he did the right thing for the long haul, even if it was the wrong thing for the immediate situation.