You're Hired!

The winner of You’re Hired! 2011 was Stephanie Wearne of Marine Academy Plymouth, who now holds the prestigious title of “Plymouth’s Most Employable 17 Year Old”

The Final for 2010 took place in Plymouth City Centre over 2 days in June.

42 finalists from 12 schools arrived at the University of Plymouth at 7.30 a.m. on the first day, eager to find out what was in store for them!

Two entirely different challenges were set by Langage Farm and Frontline Image in which the 17 year olds, after being placed into teams, were asked, to devise a new and unique ice-cream flavour and to come up with their own original designs for T-shirts. They were also tasked with going out to designated business areas to secure orders for their ice creams. The competition hotted up on the second day when the teams manned their own stalls at locations around the city centre and utilised their skills to sell their products and pitch to a Dragons Den style panel.

Despite being a slightly overcast day (which might have slowed down ice cream sales) each team was successful in making a profit and as a result six chosen charities received £200 each.

The day ended with an inspirational guest speaker, Sally Hurst, from The Old Bag Company and the Awards Presentation at which the winners were announced.

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The winner of You’re Hired 2010 was Dana Fowles

2nd was Hannah Griffiths

3rd was Laura McLeod

KPMG – Best Future Accountant – Ben Hutson

Langage Farm – Best Future Marketing Executive – Hannah Griffiths

Bailey Partnership – Best Future Building Engineer – Julia Hayes

SAHFOS – Best Future Employee – Mike Ives

Cowlin Construction – Best Future Constructor – Matylda Maciejewska

Frontline Image – Best Future Clothing Manufacturer – Nathan Smith (plus Frontline Image/truffleshuffle.com runners up – Grace Wake, Laura McLeod, Kaileigh Hunter, Dana Fowles)

Winning Team – Andrew Avery, Holly Crook, Georgina Drysdale, Rhys Hancock, Ben Hutson, Laura Selbie, Grace Wake

The Grand Final of You’re Hired 2009 took place on Tuesday 23rd June at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, and Plymouth’s Best Future Employee has been chosen.

The Overall Winner for You’re Hired 2009 was …… Oliver Macrae! Congratulations, Oliver.

Emily Readman was the Runner Up, with Verity Westcott taking third place.

For the remaining winners, take a look at the "Winners" tab.

The day was ‘Apprentice Style’ with experts scrutinising students throughout the day until they found the winner.

Coverage of the You’re Hired final from the Plymouth Herald:

See the winners here.

For lots more photos, see our page on facebook.

The 2008 You’re Hired! final started at 6.30 a.m. with the contestants arriving at the Plymouth Guildhall. There, they were put into six teams of five by Jan and Nicky from Tamar Education Business Partnership.

Last year there were five schools taking part – Lipson Community College, Estover Community College, St Boniface’s Roman Catholic Boys’ School, Plymouth High School for Girls and Devonport High School for Girls - so each team was made up of five pupils from five different schools. Being able to establish a working team with people they have never met before was very much part of the challenge for the contestants. Each team was then packed off in a taxi to a mystery destination…

… which was the Plymstock branch of The Range. There, they were introduced to the first of the two challenges by Plymouth’s own version of Sir Alan Sugar, Chris Dawson. This retail challenge started with buying stock from The Range (at a discount) which they then had to sell to the general public from stalls in and just outside Plymouth’s Pannier Market.

As a retail tycoon who started out as a market trader, could we have had a better person to set this challenge than Chris Dawson?

After Chris’s pep talk, the contestants were whisked straight back to the Guildhall and the introduction to the second challenge. This was set by Mike Fisher, an architect at Bailey Partnership, one of our sponsoring employers. The task was to design a landmark building for the Millbay regeneration area. How the teams divided themselves between the two tasks was left entirely up to them. Those taking part in the retail challenge would have gone from the Guildhall to the Pannier Market, where they found their stock already delivered courtesy of vans provided by Mitie and Cowlin Construction.

The market traders finished trading at 3.00 p.m., then packed up their stalls and made their way back to the Guildhall. Back at the Guildhall, the contestants doing the building design presented their building designs and concepts to the judges from 3.00pm.

Then the serious debating began among the judges. There was an overall winner (“Plymouth’s Best Future Employee 2008″) and a runner-up, and each sponsoring employer gave their own awards.

As well as the title, some really good CV points and a trophy, the overall winner received a prize of two months of paid work experience with the sponsoring employer of their choice.