We are now (roughly) at the half-way point of this year’s series of The Apprentice and it has so far been something of a mixed series. The challenges have had some ups and downs and there hasn’t been much I feel in a way of stand out moments; except maybe for the one candidate actually needing a trip to the hospital for a legitimate injury. Anyway, there has been quite a few people who have been needing a good sacking this year, but as most of them have now gone, we are left with some hit and miss candidates! But in that line-up we do have some pretty good candidates who in my mind are looking good at winning the contest. So, in the opposite fashion to a post I wrote a couple of years ago about which candidates I most wanted to see getting the finger, here is my personal favourite choices, of whom I would like to see win.
3. Khadija Kalifa – One phrase that came up from time to time in earlier series of The Apprentice is the term: Motor Mouth. The online definition of this term is “a person who talks quickly and incessantly”. Motor Mouths in The Apprentice were so many at one point that the BBC even did a special on them. Khadija has had quite a lot of incidents in this year’s series of the Apprentice where she could very well easily be placed in the Apprentice’s Motor Mouth hall of Fame, however being a Motor Mouth in the Apprentice is not entirely a bad thing, as quite a lot of them have gone on to reach the last couple of episodes of the show. Khadija may well be a Motor Mouth, but, she has shown that she is actually one of the more capable candidates this series. She has led her team to victory in week 2 despite her management style bordering tyrannical. Despite this though, on every task since, I feel that she has not just improved on that, but has come to stand out as one of the better candidates due to her can-do-attitude and always working hard to do her best in the tasks for her team, whether win or lose.
2. Jasmine Kundra – Being Project Manager in the first week is always hard, and could be considered even harder when you didn’t stand up to be it; but was rather put in the position by a team-mate possibly looking to throw someone under the bus in the first week. Well, Jasmine was the PM for the first task of the series, and did not ask for the position, but was rather thrown under the bus by fellow candidate Jackie Fast. Losing as PM in the first week could mean you are on a way trip to finger town; if you were to survive, you could be considered quite lucky, but coming back from that is going to be rough. Well, for me, Jasmine has done just that. Yes, she stood out badly in the first task, but since then has stood out for being quite a good candidate. She is not the mouth she was in the first week, but rather someone who has worked hard to improve their image and standing. When everyone was asked back into the final boardroom during the shoe task; Lord Sugar sent Jasmine back to the house before the grilling, for her real positive contribution to the team’s performance, despite the team’s failure. In recent weeks, the blame on her appears to more come from other candidate’s having more confidence to throw her under the bus despite their own faults being their failures. Jasmine though I think has done well getting this far after such a rough start, but one reason for this though is pretty clear: that despite everyone else’s desires for an appearance in Celebrity Big Brother by playing to the more dramatic side of Reality TV, Jasmine has shone in one more important way; her pure professionalism to each task as they come.
1. Daniel Elahi – What stands out for me about Daniel is Firstly; I think he looks a little bit like Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott (not in the hair of course, but something about the face makes me think that). But secondly and more importantly though, he stands out as quite a nice person. He doesn’t sell himself as an awesome candidate like nearly everyone else does with some ridiculous claim, and in each task, he has shown that he is a good worker who just gets on with his job and doesn’t resort to amateur dramatics to make himself stand out. He just does the work in a professional manner, and doesn’t make boastful claims of others or take credit for things he hasn’t done. He just seems, well, honest, he feels like a real person, not an actor. To date, this series, he is also the only candidate not to be brought back into the boardroom for a prospective firing. He stands out, but not for the wrong reasons, for the right ones, and so far to me has shown that he is by far the best candidate this series.
Things I Like 
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