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Credit: Nick Romanenko
People applying for a slot on the next
season of “The Apprentice” applauded
Randal Pinkett when he entered the
waiting room at the Rutgers Student
Center March 23. Pinkett, a 1994 Rutgers
graduate, won last season and is working
with Donald Trump on a makeover of his
Atlantic City casino. More than 130
people showed up to try out for Trump’s
popular reality show in which aspiring
entrepreneurs complete business
objectives on their way to the final
prize, a one-year paid apprenticeship
with Trump. Applicant Steve Ostergren,
inset, conducts business while waiting
to be called for a five-minute interview
with casting associates.
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Casting associates looking for the next “Apprentice” – the winner of the popular reality show of the same name featuring real estate mogul Donald Trump – had so much luck with one Rutgers alumnus that they figured they’d give it another shot.
Randal Pinkett, who graduated in 1994 with a degree in electrical engineering, was on hand at a special casting call March 23 at the Rutgers Student Center exclusively for Rutgers students, staff, faculty and alumni. Pinkett bested 17 other candidates to become Donald Trump’s apprentice. The Somerset resident and native is working on upgrading the Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City as his yearlong assignment – the prize for winning the show.
“I feel as though certainly given my experience at Rutgers, it’s an incredible institution,” Pinkett said. “It really is preparing many New Jersey residents and also people from outside the state to be leaders. ‘The Apprentice’ is about identifying leaders. ... If anything, my performance on the show speaks for how well Rutgers has prepared me to perform on the show and can certainly prepare any of the candidates here to do the same thing. Harvard has had a few candidates, so there is no reason why Rutgers can’t produce two Apprentices.”
Pinkett is among Rutgers’ most distinguished graduates. A Rhodes scholar, he was recently inducted into Rutgers’ African American Alumni Alliance Hall of Fame, and has been featured in Ebony, Parade and Black Enterprise magazines as a business leader to watch. He runs a multimillion-dollar consulting firm in Newark with three other Rutgers alumni. His wife Zahara Wadud-Pinkett works as a senior alumni relations officer at Rutgers. Pinkett credits her with motivating him to apply for “The Apprentice.”
“I was a big fan of the show since season one,” Wadud-Pinkett said. “Watching the show, I always thought about Randal and how he approached business and how he approached life. I thought he possessed qualities that I hadn’t seen in the other candidates. He leads with grace, he’s very driven and he’s extremely grounded – great traits to have in that environment.”
Senior alumni relations officer Michael Rutkowski said that Mark Burnett Productions contacted Rutgers about the casting call. “The idea to hold it at Rutgers came from Donald Trump himself. He suggested several schools and Rutgers was one of them,” Rutkowski said.
More than 130 people responded to the casting call. Pinkett garnered a round of applause when he arrived to address the applicants, and spoke with many one-on-one.
“After watching a couple of episodes of the last season, I knew Randal was the clear winner,” said applicant Steve Ostergren.
Watching Pinkett in action made Ostergren wonder if he had the right stuff as well. Ostergren, who graduated in 1988 with a degree in ceramics engineering, is also an entrepreneur. Just months after graduating from Rutgers, he opened up Scarlet Fever, the spirit shop selling Rutgers apparel on Somerset Street. “I decided to go that route before I graduated from school,” he said. “It was just a matter of asking myself if I could do it, if I could really pull it off.”
He did. Ostergren owns Scarlet Fever as well as a T-shirt printing business and several rental properties in New Brunswick. “I don’t need anymore. I enjoy what I do,” he said. “But deep down – everybody wants to be a star.”
For others, the casting call presented an opportunity to make up for lost time. Douglass College graduate Terris Moss has had three different career paths – communication, real estate and pharmaceuticals – since she got her bachelor’s degree in communication in 1985.
“I’m kind of a late bloomer. I’m in my 40s and I’m not where I want to be, so I think this would be an opportunity to make up for the lost years,” she said. “I’m older than most of the applicants and I have quite a bit of life experience in addition to business and education, so I think I would be a unique contender.”
So what does it take to be an “Apprentice”? Applicants got advice from the most recent winner.
“My advice is to be yourself. Relax. Obviously this is different from a normal interview but it is still an interview. The same rules apply,” he said. “Be yourself, be comfortable, answer questions and be direct. Try to let your personality shine.”
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