The Apprentice is a reality television show that first aired in 2004 in the United States. The person who came up with the show was Mark Burnett, who earlier successfully brought the British series Survivor to the US. Until 2016, it was hosted by then-businessman Donald Trump, but in 2005, there was a spin-off hosted by Martha Stewart.
In the program, a group of 15 to 18 people hope to get a job worth US$250,000 to run one of Trump's companies. In each episode, the contestants are split into two teams who each have to do a task. The task could be selling something, making an advertisement, or running a stall at an event. In the end, one team will win (usually because they have made the most money) and they will get a prize of some sort. The people on the team that loses have to explain to Trump what went wrong, and at the end of every episode, Trump will say "You're fired!" to one or more people from this team, who then no longer appears in the show for the rest of the season. However, in the very last episode, Trump says "You're hired!" to the person who wins the grand prize instead.
The American version of the show had fifteen seasons. In the first six seasons and the 10th season, the people who appeared on the show were ordinary people. In seasons 7 to 9 and from season 11 onwards, these people were celebrities, who try to win money for charities instead of running one of Trump's companies. This version of the show is called The Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump hosted the show until he became President of the United States in 2016. The most recent season, which aired in 2017, had Arnold Schwarzenegger in charge, but Trump continued to be the executive producer. However, Schwarzenegger left the show at the end of the season after he was criticized by Trump for low ratings.
Many countries have their own version of The Apprentice, each having a different person in charge. For example, the version from the United Kingdom has Alan Sugar.