Iris The Insider

Imagine going for a job interview

where the boss got to know everything about you.

Would it help you get the job?

-I've told everyone to their face, you all annoy me to

-BLEEP!

Now some companies are trying a radical new way to find talent.

There is no way any interview can possibly compete with what we've just been through.

-The strongest applicants have been invited to live...

-Bring it on!

It makes me think I'm not good enough.

-..and work...

-Can we stop arguing?

..alongside one another for ten days.

-I'm sick of it! Make a decision!

-We've all just had enough of it.

But they're not all they seem.

One of them is actually a senior manager in the company,

who is secretly reporting back to the bosses.

-You put everybody else's ideas down.

-That's not true.

I'm not sure that we were all professional.

"Keeping cover is much harder than I expected."

"It was a real eye-opener."

"One of the candidates in particular showed real promise."

And it's the insider who decides who gets the job.

You are going to be the one that has to work with them so don't screw up.

This week,

a group of job hopefuls will compete to work in the advertising industry.

I think it's very unfair that you said we don't listen to your ideas.

I found it very, very difficult working with these people.

But which one is the insider?

I'm going to go upstairs and let you guys decide between yourselves

how you're going to do it.

-I'm like,

-BLEEP!

-I want this more than ever.

I don't think I've wanted anything more.

-Yeah!

-BLEEP!

-THEY LAUGH

And when their identity is finally revealed...

The person who's going to be making the decision

around which candidate Iris takes on is sitting here in the room.

-What the hell?

-Oh, my gosh!

Is this actually happening? What is going on?

Who will get the job?

Creative, glamorous, fun, exciting.

Advertising is one of the most competitive industries to break into...

..and one company that's flooded with CVs is Iris,

an award-winning agency responsible for some of the biggest campaigns in the world,

including Adidas, Sony and the 2012 Olympic Games mascots.

Iris is seen as one of the top agencies in the marketplace.

If you're willing to work hard and to get on,

there's the opportunity to travel round the world with your job

with all the different offices that are worldwide.

The philosophy for culture at Iris is work hard, play hard.

Every day there's always going to be something that's going

to make you smile at Iris and that's probably the biggest benefit.

Now an exciting opportunity has come up for a new account executive.

You have to be incredibly hardworking, dynamic, organised.

You have to be able to deal with clients and creative.

You definitely have to be an all-rounder.

And this is a creative company so of course,

they're not going to hire them the ordinary way.

I think interviews are a flawed technique.

Within an hour interview you can find out

if somebody's very bright and articulate.

What you can't find out is how they get on with people.

From hundreds of applicants,

four people have been short-listed for their dream job.

But there's a twist, a fifth contender is joining them -

a mole who's already a senior manager in the company.

It'll be up to them to secretly assess the others,

and decide who to employ.

We've always been extremely innovative in the way that we've attracted talent.

I think what this gives us an opportunity to do

is to truly get on the inside of a group of individuals.

Trying to find out how they tick when they're outside of the offices

is just as important as how they tick when they're in the office.

To really get to know their potential workmates,

over the next ten days the insider will be working and living with them.

-Oh, my gosh!

-Not too bad!

-They've got a conservatory.

-Excellent!

This is my throne.

This is beautiful.

It's such an amazing place, you want to run around and have a look at all the bits and pieces.

Yeah, it's really cool. I like this one.

-Yeah, I like this. I like this one.

-This one's warmer as well.

We'll get along well in this house,

we've all got our own rooms and there's a good vibe so far.

The job-seekers have been told they're being assessed 24/7

but little do they know it's one of their housemates deciding their fate.

So, who is the insider?

No stranger to a bit of self-promotion

is Chelsea boy and nightclub host Jon.

I do get people that look at me and think, you know,

"This guy, he's surrounded by the nice-looking women

"and he's partying with the most amounts of champagne."

So it does attract the kind of wrong attention.

But frankly I don't really care

because at the end of the day it's all about showing off.

A lot of his friends do call him the Champagne King.

He is a popular guy, the guys just want to be his mate.

He's one of the lads to the guys and to the girls,

it's a bit more than that for some of them.

I was born into a life of opportunity, shall we say,

which basically means that I have fairly rich parents.

I would pretty much go to any length to win this.

I can't remember the last time I lost anything,

it was probably the egg and spoon race at primary school.

Planning to make an impact is Danielle,

a streetwise advertising graduate from Birmingham.

I'd say my journey's had quite a few ups and downs.

We lived in council accommodation,

my mum was a single parent at 21 with two kids.

My mum's been my inspiration.

She's always been there for me,

and I think it's her support what kind of builds my confidence.

She's so determined and so committed to succeeding for herself

and I know a lot of it is for me as well.

I'd probably be prepared to go to any lengths to get the job.

This is what I want, this is what I'm working towards

and this is what I have been working towards for a good few years now

so I'm not going to fall at the final hurdle,

I'm going to do whatever it takes.

Joker of the pack Carl,

an advertising graduate from Northern Ireland,

is ready to launch his own campaign.

If I had to market myself as a product,

the product I would choose would be an aeroplane.

Like a plane I'm split into three classes -

economy class because I can do a lot with a little bit of money,

business class because I've got a good head for business

and first class, because all the work I do is first class.

People's biggest misconception of him is that he doesn't care

and he doesn't really take anything seriously,

and actually he really does care.

I'm that passionate about advertising

I feel it's part of my make-up, it's part of my DNA.

It runs through my veins and it's in my lifeblood.

Then there's Jo from the Isle of Wight,

with some impressive achievements to plug.

At school and college, I've always been a straight A student.

I was the first young apprentice

for the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce.

People's biggest misconception of me is I'm Daddy's little princess...

erm, which to some extent is true.

She gets what she wants. She puts a big hole in my pocket.

I'm driven and motivated by the desire to do well, to be successful.

To make my parents proud is probably my ultimate goal.

The final contender is Ross,

an ex-recruitment consultant from Scotland

with an ear for a catchy tune.

I'm the one that gets the beers in.

I'm the one that's up for a laugh,

but then I'm also the one

you can confide in and trust

and I tend to give a lot of myself to people.

He's got a brain like a sponge.

You tell him something once and he'll remember it for ever.

To get the job done I'd go to any lengths

-beyond risking someone else's life!

-HE LAUGHS

Whoever the insider is,

the interviewees are unaware that the double agent amongst them

is secretly reporting their findings back to Steve, the CEO.

"Hi, Steve, in terms of keeping the cover

"it's so much harder than I thought.

"I feel like I'm working nothing short of an MI6 operation.

"Lives are at risk.

"There's a mixed bag here, a good dynamic of introverts and extroverts.

"There are candidates I feel I could be friends with

"at this stage, and this might make picking one person for the job hard,

"as I'll have a personal relationship with them.

"I doubt anyone suspects a thing. Over and out.

"See you on the other side."

Today the group will reveal what they're made of at work.

-KNOCK ON DOOR

-Morning.

-You're very much naked!

-Just a bit!

-Morning!

They're about to be thrown in at the deep end of advertising.

No easy first day for this lot.

In just 24 hours they'll have to pitch a new campaign

for SoBe Pure Rush, an energy drink aimed at the female market.

Hi, pleased to meet you. I'm Jo.

And it's an awkward meeting for the insider,

who's good mates with account director Elisha.

Maybe best to avoid eye contact.

The GB energy drinks market is a really, really big market,

it's worth £869 million.

We sort of specifically said we want to target females

aged between 25 to 35.

Would you be going for a sort of music angle?

We could do music, we could do art, that's the question.

What is the right thing for us to be going down?

We need you guys to think about a creative idea that can be

brought to life through lots of different channels.

Just try and stay on the brief as much as possible.

Good luck.

Being in the same room as the insider was incredibly difficult.

We've been working together and socialising together

so seeing that person and obviously briefing them

was incredibly tricky not to blow the whole thing really early on.

It's not just Elisha the insider has to worry about.

They're well known by another 450 members of staff,

who've all been trusted to keep shtoom.

In nine days, one of the advertising wannabes will land the job of their dreams.

With that in mind, they get down to business

and start brainstorming ideas for their pitch.

That number one is, do you want to just whack "25 hour clock"

or "get 25 hours in a day" in the middle?

It's saying that we can give them this extra hour,

so they've got this energy to do more stuff,

basically they can fit more in.

Just so I'm clear, the concept is basically

this drink will allow women to fill their day with more,

-that we're basically giving them an extra hour.

-Got it.

Do you want to get that line down?

We're giving them an extra hour. I think that sums it up nicely.

The insider is an experienced account manager

who's now pretending to be a complete rookie.

Is it the planner? The peacemaker? Or the player?

What they've got to do is get the trust from the group as a whole.

They've also got to try and push to one side everything they know about the industry,

and I think that's going to be really, really difficult.

Let's think about it, what could go on the page?

It's only taken this lot two hours of working together before the cracks start to show.

What about if you had a picture of a woman drinking the can?

-As...that's an idea, if you like?

-Yeah.

There are a lot of variables in that.

Like what does she look like? Where is she from?

How old is she? What colour hair has she got? How long is it?

Yeah, but that's irrelevant.

It doesn't matter what colour hair she has!

-BLEEP!

-We're talking about hair.

Bloody hell. It's advertising.

She's just said, right, we need to make...

-Can we stop arguing?

-Just focus on this one.

When I plant a seed of an idea,

it's a starting point that we can all discuss and develop,

but instead of that what we're doing is just saying no.

We work in different ways, so let's just agree to disagree.

You work in a way that basically puts everyone else's ideas down.

That's just not true.

Me and Jo, erm...yeah, we were kind of on the same page

when it came to looking at the female target audience.

What kind of things do females like?

Whereas Jon kind of lost the whole sight of who we're aiming at

and what does it mean and why we're doing it.

The competition is quite fierce, looking at all of us as individuals,

but what is paramount to me at the moment is satisfying the brief,

because I think the main thing to do is deliver good work which the client's going to be happy with.

After an afternoon of bickering and with less than 24 hours before the pitch,

the insider grabs a few minutes

to secretly report back to their boss, Steve.

"Having to do the pitch is helping me to see

"people's different capabilities in a way an interview wouldn't.

"One of the candidates in particular showed real promise.

"There are some candidates that are better at building relationships.

"Some listen more than others, which shows patience.

"Keeping cover is much harder than I expected.

"Then worrying that someone has noticed.

"Personally I found the day pretty draining,

"probably more stressful than other candidates,

"considering I've had to do everything they're doing,

"whilst also self-assessing 100% of the time to stay on point."

Can we stop arguing?

The insider is now deep undercover with a group

of unsuspecting wannabe account executives.

Shall we start...shall we start spreading out papers

and seeing where we're at and seeing what we feel?

Could it be the person playing it safe?

The one keeping a low profile?

Or the one who's purposely stirring things up?

One thing's for sure, Jon's determined to make his point known.

If you've managed to have a marketing campaign

that was basically our customers, we would basically get them to say,

"If I got a million likes, I will get this sponsored by Pure Rush."

This is a genius social marketing viral...

It's not genius, it's been done a billion times. It's dead.

We're getting something back, we're getting advertising.

That's the whole purpose of it. Does that not make sense?

I understand your idea, I understand where you're coming from.

I just don't think it would work in practice.

What I'll say is that you basically decide exactly what it is

you want me to pitch tomorrow and I'll pitch that tomorrow.

-Is that a decision you're making?

-That's a decision I'm making.

Jon, are you walking out of this meeting?

I'm going to go upstairs and let you guys decide between yourselves

how you're going to do it.

I'm not writing any of his work.

If he wants to take the risk and trust us

for no apparent reason, he can do that.

If they direct a question to him

and he hasn't a clue what we've been talking about, it looks like we've all failed.

I think the best thing to do is get him to flick the PowerPoint.

That's a really good idea! That's a really good idea!

-"And Jon."

-THEY LAUGH

"When you're ready."

I feel like I'm the only person with half a brain cell down there

but I thought the best solution was for me to basically

get out of the situation and leave them to,

you know, talk about pointless things.

You know, I'm going to try and work with them

but unless they start listening to me and start respecting me

I think it's just going to continue down this route.

It's the morning of the big pitch.

-I'll be, like, one minute.

-Thanks.

Today the insider will have the chance to see how the others present under pressure.

Last night we wrapped up trying to get this pitch polished off

at about four o'clock in the morning.

Because of the lack of Jon's input,

we're kind of forced to not give him much to do

so he's going to be introducing us as individuals to the clients,

if he can remember our names.

This is an everyday job for the insider.

But if they show themselves off as a know-it-all,

they could easily blow their cover.

Right, guys. We only have half an hour before the pitch.

So will we get these mounted?

As the team prepare...

I'd start by saying, "Just to reintroduce ourselves,

"I'm Jon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

..it seems 27-year-old posh party boy Jon

isn't used to playing second fiddle to a bunch of uni graduates.

Just so I don't mess up my part, let me just check your names again.

Erm...Charlotte... Jo.

-Close. It's Danielle.

-Danielle, sorry. My bad.

Danielle. Good start.

Jo, Ross...

..and Gary.

There we go. One out of four isn't bad.

-Did you say Gary?

-Did you say Gary?

I don't think we're going in to a presentation

where we're not prepared, where we don't have a good idea to back it up.

We worked really hard on this and from where we were this time yesterday to where we've come today,

I think we've got something to really be proud of.

To target their energy drink to women,

the clients are expecting an energetic and original pitch.

Just to reintroduce ourselves, I'm Jon...

Jo, nice to meet you.

-Carl.

-Danielle.

I'm Ross.

I will pass you on to Jo who will explain in a bit more detail what we've been up to.

-Thanks very much, thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Although this has been a very challenging brief for us,

we feel as though we've uncovered the concept

that will speak to the 25-to-35-year-old female market.

We don't want to just be a passing kind of face

in the very cluttered market at the moment, we want to stand out.

We are trying to create a relationship, something like a bond.

The visual representation is the installation of a clock,

it could be in any park.

As you can see the focal point of this concept

is the 25th hour in the day,

this is what we wanted to symbolise,

that women drinking Pure Rush, the women engaging in this kind of

lifestyle, it's very normal to want a little bit more time in the day.

Jo is such a good presenter, she's got great presentation skills,

she's like a duck to water, really.

It's something to keep her going, consistently,

giving her that extra hour.

She can do Bikram yoga, picking up her hummus from Waitrose.

THEY LAUGH So that's our experiential idea.

I was impressed, given that you've only had two days

and you've done quite a lot of work.

So I think what we would like to do is actually explore the potential

of the idea with Iris and see if we could make it work.

Who was the leader of this task? Cos every task has a leader.

I would say we all played a really, really important part.

Four of us were up last night at 4:30 thinking,

"We are not going to bed until we are so proud to say

"we've done Iris proud," because we know we're representing you in front of the client.

I would say, as opposed to the other candidates,

probably the most creative.

I...have naturally a very creative person.

Whereas I think as they've been to university

they're much more planners and, you know,

me being in that situation wasn't helping anything.

I have to say I disagree with you, I think we would have got...

I feel about myself.

Every time I was there...

See, this is exactly a prime example of what happens when...

I also think it's very unfair that you said

we didn't listen to your ideas.

There was numerous times when we kind of congratulated you on a good idea, we said, "That's good".

-I found it very, very difficult working with these people, yeah.

-OK.

I'm not sure that we were all professional from start to finish.

Jon, at certain times, behaves in a certain way

that tends to rub people up the wrong way.

It's getting to the point where I think we've all had enough of it.

He just cares about his ego

and demonstrating that he's amazing when he clearly isn't.

Steve might be confused now,

but it's all about to become a whole lot clearer.

This afternoon he's meeting his informer to get the inside story.

I'm going to go upstairs and let you guys decide between yourselves

how you're going to do it.

The group have been called in to feed back to CEO Steve on their week so far.

For the insider, this is the first chance to break cover

and share some home truths with their boss.

-Jonny.

-Hi.

-How are you doing?

-Very well, yeah.

-Hi, Steve.

-Hi, Jo. How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

-Good, good.

So, how are you finding things?

It's been really eye-opening for me, really enjoying it.

Quite tough, hard work.

It's been a crazy couple of days

and it's something that I think takes a lot of adjusting.

It's been really interesting.

It's been a complete change from, you know, what I'm used to.

And how are you finding being the insider?

A lot harder than I thought it was going to be!

Really, really, really hard.

Constantly having to think about what I'm going to say,

self-assessing, having to be on point the whole time.

It's a full-time job just trying to keep the cover.

I have been working at Iris the last two years.

I am an account manager here.

I worked across a variety of global projects

and it's a privilege to work here and it's now a privilege

to be spying on who's going to be the next employee.

Are there any standout candidates at the moment?

At this moment in time I don't think there's any one

that's head and shoulders above.

Danielle's really grown on me,

working on the pitch she was so on brief the whole time.

I was really, really impressed.

If she thought about a way of expressing herself more clearly

and getting her point across more directly,

she would be the obvious choice.

Carl's character is very friendly and funny.

He's motivated to do the job and you warm to him very easily.

-And what about Jo?

-She's very, very keen and very organised.

I personally don't think she has the flair

and understanding of trying to inspire imagination from the client.

Let's talk about Jonny.

Yeah. My honest feedback on Jon is that there's something there,

but it's buried beneath layers and layers and layers

of arrogance and lack of tact.

If you wanted to employ him here, I would leave.

-Wow! That's a pretty bold statement!

-Yeah.

We sat down last night to go through exactly what we're going to do for us to present today.

He was throwing out ideas. Some were great, some were not.

However, if an idea gets shot down and he goes,

"You know, this isn't productive for any of us," it was like,

"I have to be centre stage, if I'm not centre stage I'll go away."

We've got to work out whether there is something there.

I can see something there.

I want him to be part of the process cos I think he can challenge

and I think your role is to almost try and act as the cog to that.

Remember, Ross, you're going to be the one that has to work with them.

So don't screw it up.

In a week's time, Ross will have to make his decision and own up to who he really is.

The task ahead of me is quite a difficult one.

The responsibility weighs heavy on my shoulders

that I need to choose the right person for this

and I've been trusted to do that.

After several stressful days, Jon's clearly not Ross's cup of tea.

-Would you say I'm posh?

-I'd say you're posh.

-Really?

-Posh boy.

-I think you like to be posh, don't you?

-I like it, yeah.

But could he be about to offer a sweetener?

We've obviously had a very difficult week and, you know,

it's frustrating for everyone.

I'm getting used to working within a team

cos as we all realise,

I'm a very individual, independent thinker and person.

If I can compromise on that and you guys know where

I'm coming from sometimes, I think we may scrape through.

The Jon I'm seeing now, we can listen to you,

we can have a conversation now, it's working well.

And I think if you had delivered your ideas in that way,

I don't know, we would have heard them a little bit better.

I thought it was important to sit down and have a chat

and try and clear as much of the air as possible.

I think moving forward I think it'll probably be a good thing for us all.

It feels like a real turning point.

Obviously he lacks a fair amount of knowledge in social skill

in certain instances, however he has a lot of creativity

and he's probably not an account handler

but I'd hope for the rest of the week he'd be a better person.

Faint praise indeed.

It looks like he's still got a way to go

to win over his undercover assessor.

It's Saturday night

and the candidates are getting ready to hit the town.

Should be a laugh, going out with all the guys,

we're all together tonight so...should be fun.

Advertising is about working hard, but playing hard too.

Ross has seen them graft

but tonight he's more interested to see if they know how to party.

If someone doesn't play hard enough,

it's probably going to affect them more than if they play too hard.

So fingers crossed no-one takes themselves too seriously.

Cheers!

Who's had like a mental night out? Or what are your biggest nights out?

I sort of base how good my night is

on how much I've been able to show off, basically, so...

-No, you like to show off?

-Yeah! Unbelievable, right?

Biggest night I've had is probably Ibiza.

-Yeah, boy!

-Yeah, first night.

Because you arrive, don't you?

And you're just in party mode, like holiday mode.

And I ended up just raving on a stage in some Irish pub with a pint.

Slipped on me flip-flops and just face planted the ground on me first night.

Coming out and being social,

I'd say that probably Carl is the most like an Iris person.

We seem to be having a bit of a laugh and, yeah...

-Yeah, definitely!

-BLEEP!

-THEY LAUGH

Me and Carl have had a lot of fun this evening

and I've never been on a night out with an Iris person and not had fun.

It's Monday morning.

Hi. I'm Coxy, I'm the personal trainer here at Iris.

And after a heavy weekend, some of the candidates

are more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than others.

Everything you've got! Drive it!

-I just really don't like it.

-But for half an hour can you just do it?

I don't mind doing the boxing.

It's just running, specifically running just irritates me.

Tough luck, Jon.

This company is all about work hard, play hard and train hard too,

because they offer complimentary personal training to their staff.

Go! Nice jump.

SHE LAUGHS

Look at the sweat!

Facing a dilemma about who to choose for the job

and with the contenders literally metres away,

Ross steals a chat with his colleague.

My first impressions are really good, of the girl and the guy,

-Jo and...

-Jo and Carl.

-Lovely, really enthusiastic.

How are you finding the rest of them?

All right, there's a winner there.

It's tough, it's a really difficult decision.

All of the candidates are impressing me in different ways

but it's become pretty apparent to me that the two

that I'm having to really struggle to make a decision about

are Carl and Danielle.

I think that's going to be the ones

that are going to go down to the wire.

We've still got five days left, so technically

anything could happen, the decisions haven't been made yet.

Ross is a cool customer.

I've known him a while and he's a good mate.

And, you know, he's got to be seriously biting his tongue.

It's really good, it's fun to see.

The pressure level will be switched up a notch

for the candidates' final job.

They must create a large-scale stunt for Kit Kat.

And for Ross, there's the added pressure

of keeping it together sitting opposite his creative director Andy.

We want you to take Kit Kat Chunky Milk,

out to the streets of London, get people to taste it,

and we want you to put a smile

in 1,000 of our target consumers' breaks.

It will be Waterloo station in London,

which is one of the busiest train stations in Europe.

You will have two hours where you need to stop 1,000 people.

Are you quite precious about what it stands for at the moment?

Or would you be open to more kind of pushing it in one direction?

Quite precious! Yeah, I'm quite precious.

'You could sort of sense the frustration on his part,

'that he wanted to kind of lead the thing.'

And instead just sort of having to stay there

and watch them making mistakes and asking stupid questions.

Just, yeah, very entertaining.

Let's put it this way, we still hope to have Kit Kat as a client

at the end of the week so we need you to go out there and do us proud.

Let's read through what we have on the wall.

Over the next three days the team must come up with a big idea,

sell it to the client and then pull it off.

One of the ideas was basically having kind of like a Royal scene,

so you'd have the Queen, and I do actually know these lookalikes,

Prince William and Kate,

and I thought it would be quite funny for them to also be sat there

and Kate and Wills were cradling a giant Kit Kat Chunky type thing.

They would also walk away with a kind of Polaroid or a picture of them in that scene.

-That's really good.

-That was my main idea,

I think my other ones probably wouldn't be as good.

Jon's been pretty good today, pretty impressive like a decent creative,

coming up with an idea, understanding it's not formed

but appreciating the feedback he's got and allowing

other people time to take the floor, which is a real first for him.

I liked the idea initially when I was thinking of the inside

of the sort of awkward Britishness, with queues and stuff like that

and people queue-jumping and getting you to...daring someone to jump

the queue or to do something which is considered rude...

-Boring! Sorry.

-How is it...sorry?

That's so rich! That's so rude!

You've sat there, he puts one on the table and you say "boring", that's ridiculous!

Queue-jumping though, that's not, like, it's not...

I just think that's disgraceful! That is just disgraceful!

We've sat listening to your ideas all day,

Carl gives it a go and you yell "boring" over the top.

It's never her that's done the wrong thing unfortunately,

which doesn't make a very good account handler.

Later, Chelsea boy Jon and cheeky Irish lad Carl

seem to be enjoying a love-in as they assess the competition.

As much as I think that Ross has brown-nosed his way

into becoming the kind of secondary leader, you know,

I would love to see you win it and I want you to win it.

So I'm championing you,

obviously, apart from myself. So congratulations.

-Congratulations.

-You have my approval!

Meanwhile mystery mole Ross is trying not to blow his cover

as he subtly grills Jo about why she really wants the job.

I didn't think I'd want this job as much as I did when I first started.

And now I've kind of come here and I thought,

-"This is

-BLEEP

-awesome! This company is amazing!"

I'm like, I want this more than ever, like...

I don't think I've ever wanted anything more.

It's obvious that you're really motivated and driven.

Where do you think you get your drive from?

Mainly it's probably come from my parents.

They're really motivated and they've worked hard.

They're self-starters.

Everything they've done is what they wanted, they aspired for more

and they have always pushed us to do our best.

This experience for me has shown me this is kind of what I want to do.

Obviously I've not worked in an advertising agency before, so I don't really know.

But imagine, in ten years' time if I was the boss of Iris,

like, that's an incredible idea.

-Yeah.

-What about you, where are you going to be in ten?

-CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

-THEY LAUGH

-How very corporate.

-Yeah.

Yeah, in terms of who I feel the frontrunners are,

there are constant adjustments.

And it's little things that may happen in private conversations

or the insight someone may have that they've not really shared.

It's little things like that that just make me go,

"Oh, right. OK, I'll note that down."

So, yeah. It's going to be the hardest decision in the world at the end of the week.

Boring!

I want you to win it!

Despite being rank amateurs when it comes to advertising,

the team have come up with the idea of using

a comedian for their stunt in Waterloo station.

It's very engaging with the audience...

I'm holding a PR stunt

and I'm looking for two comedians, ideally.

They have just 24 hours to create artwork and brief the designers

if they can come up with a catchy slogan.

Is everybody OK with "Give or take a break"?

-Cos I feel like that's a good one.

-I think that's the best one so far.

-Jo, do you want to write "Give and take a break" down?

-I don't like that.

"A thousand breaks to give or take", what's wrong with that?

"A thousand breaks to give or take".

"One thousand breaks to give or take".

Yes. Oh, I'm such a genius.

The position that we were in last night

to today is a lot more positive.

Everyone's pretty happy with where we've got to.

"A thousand breaks to give and take" across the top.

We've now briefed design and got some ideas on the table of how

things are going to look

and we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel

in terms of what we're actually going to deliver.

To get the inside track on the group,

and knowing that one of them will be a future workmate,

some of the Iris staff have invited them all out for drinks.

Hi, how you doing?

But Ross' cover is in danger of being blown.

These people are some of his best mates

and drinking buddies from the office.

-Cheers.

-Cheers, guys.

How is it, all living together?

It's quite...it's quite intense cos obviously we're working together

during the day and then going home and living with each other,

it's quite like a...

You don't...I don't think you get that in a normal job so...

-It is a little bit like uni again, yeah.

-A little bit like that, yeah.

I feel quite lucky to have been thrown into the situation

because I feel like I'm with like-minded people

who'd all do something like this.

As his friends leave, Ross takes a risk,

makes his excuses and dashes outside.

THEY LAUGH

That was so weird!

That was weird.

You have no idea.

That is one of the worst things I've ever done in my whole life.

Were you aware of my strategy of just ignoring you?

Only because I nearly gave the game away as soon as I saw you,

I was like, I need to just not do this, I need to just not talk.

You've done an amazing job. You've done an amazing job.

Done so well!

Have fun with your normal lives!

See you later.

'There was a few moments where just, like,'

me and Jess were looking at each other and she was talking

and I just couldn't do it any more.

And she was just looking at me, trying to continue her conversation.

I was like, I can't... This...

"I need to turn round,

"I'm going to ruin this for everyone if I don't stop looking at you."

If you guys need to talk about "marketing"

and "experiential" and boring terms...

In the morning, the gang have their most important pitch to date

but this doesn't seem to bother the lads.

Ross is not amused.

Bearing in mind that we have got the biggest client meeting we've had tomorrow,

it's a bit out of line,

considering we've not even built a presentation yet.

Jo was in her room sorting out budgets

and Danielle's working really hard, or trying to.

This is a huge responsibility and a huge opportunity,

your last chance to shine, and this is what you're choosing to do.

This has an impact on the future career that any one of these people could have.

With only two days left until the group find out who has won the job,

have Jon and Carl blown their chances?

Ross has told the others he's off to the doctor,

but after last night's shenanigans,

he's actually off to warn Steve

that their pitch to one of the company's most important clients

could be about to go horribly wrong.

-How's it been going?

-Jon and Carl got pretty pissed last night.

Incredible.

I was a bit like, "Wow! That's not what I was expecting."

-Especially about Carl.

-Especially about Carl cos Carl's really...

He really put in the effort this week.

Danielle really stepped up to the plate

and actually sat up till four in the morning, on her own,

doing a presentation for the meeting that we've got at 11 o'clock.

I really like Danielle and she's bright and she's insightful

and strategically she's on it.

But has she got what it takes to be able to be that show person

that the clients hang on every word that she's saying?

I guess we've got a big meeting with the client,

so we've got to make sure that the presentation is sharp.

The group will be pitching to Kit Kat via video conference call.

-Hi, guys.

-Morning.

Their whole concept rides on the use of comedy.

Let's just hope that the client is laughing,

otherwise they'll lose the company a very valuable job.

Big client, big opportunity.

Obviously Danielle's done all the work

so who knows what's going to happen on this video conference?

Focusing on the fact that we really want to put a smile

on consumers' faces, we'd really like to focus on the comedy element.

So basically what we wanted to do was kind of really set it up

as an audience and so it's like an intimate performance.

We want to set out deckchairs in a way that the people

who are sitting on them really feel as though they're at a show.

Using our deckchairs, creating a stage,

we could have on stage comedians conveying humour.

I think the use of comedy is really strong.

We haven't actually booked the comedians yet,

that's something we're still looking into,

avenues of which comedians and timings.

But, yeah, we're hoping to have more than a couple.

Did we say we're 90% sure we can get a comedian, yeah?

I really like the quirkiness and the comedic value.

I would urge you to try and make sure that happens.

I don't know why Jo decided to promise three comedians

when we've not even got one on the table yet.

It really showed me her lack of experience, lack of thought,

lack of collaboration.

-We said to the client in the end...

-Two or more.

..two or more, didn't we?

With the success of the project now depending on them

finding two comedians, everyone hits the phone.

Yeah, we're going to pull in as many people as possible around the area.

It's a really exciting kind of experiential marketing campaign.

Is there anyone else you could recommend?

After hours of searching for a comedian,

it seems cheeky Carl's friendly phone manner has paid off.

We really like Paul Piers, we think he really fits the bill really well.

We think this guy is probably perfect for us,

we're really happy with him and I think we

definitely want to confirm Paul with you, Clive, please.

Funnily enough, although Carl's behaviour last night

was like sort of blowing off some steam,

he's really stepped up to the plate today.

My decision's a really, really difficult one now.

In less than 48 hours,

Ross must decide who gets the job of account executive,

but it seems that some are sizing him up as their main competition.

I feel that whenever we're in a group situation,

Ross will always, he'd always... naturally likes to take the lead.

I don't know, I've always got that impression from him, that he's just like,

"I'm worthy of the job and I'm the full package"

and he doesn't feel anyone could compete with him.

Meanwhile, he's subtly trying to work out where Danielle's lack of confidence stems from

and if it's something she can overcome.

My mum worked her way up and I feel as though I'm here

-because she provided that for me.

-Yeah.

-Do you know what I mean?

But I think I kind of carry that kind of background with me,

more on show than what the rest of yous do.

I do kind of put extra pressure on myself and I probably am

more critical about myself than what I probably should be.

I don't know, I feel as though I've kind of retreated a little bit.

I see you as my biggest competition here.

If you stop thinking what you've not got

and realise what you do have, you can absolutely kill it.

It's such a sweet thing to say.

Give me a hug now.

If she could get over the idea of "that's not for the likes of me",

and obviously if she can learn to express herself more directly

in the way that her point cuts through first time,

she seems like a great choice.

He doesn't feel like anyone else could compete with him.

The team have just one day left

before one of them wins the job at Iris.

It's their last chance to impress as they execute their stunt

in London's Waterloo station.

Once we get the bins in we can sort of start stuffing those in again.

They have until 11am to set up their stand

and just two hours to convince 1,000 commuters

to take a break and have a chocolate bar.

We need to get these unwrapped.

We need the screen, and the Kit Kat Chunky bars we need to get into these.

We still have another about 400 sleeves to put on the bars

so yeah, a lot to do.

So they've only got two hours and they're five minutes into that already.

It's not the best of starts, if I'm being honest.

The bosses may be watching from the sidelines,

but Ross is in the thick of it

just as the bottom falls out of their plan.

Um, what are we going to do?

-Um?

-Um, there's still so many in there.

Shall we lift this up?

Oh, my gosh!

We've had a number of disasters.

It's panic rather than enjoyment at this stage for everyone.

Let's get these off and let's do this. OK, let's go.

Free comedy. Take a break with Kit Kat Chunky.

Take a break? Yeah, yeah, let's do that.

Despite starting 15 minutes late and their bin collapsing,

their stunt is finally under way.

Luckily just as the clients show up.

-Good to see you.

-Audience! CHEERING

Do you like Kit Kat? Go on, you can have a Kit Kat just for that.

You've got one already, have another one. Yes.

Give us a cheer if you're from, say, London originally.

Oh, very polite! How British are you? You're so...

So far Danielle has been a favourite for the job,

but today she's struggling.

Excuse me, have you got five minutes to have a break with us?

I'm from Kit Kat Chunky. Free comedy.

This is no good.

It really dents your confidence when you can't give away chocolate.

It's really frustrating.

Have a lovely day.

At least party boy Jon still believes his own hype.

I feel like I'm still very much the frontrunner for this.

-You know, the tag line is...um, yes.

-Where do you want this?

And look what he's turfed up now.

Are we going to be able to put this...

How are we going to do this?

Can we? We can't do it.

Jon decided that it would look rubbish

if it was just the concourse floor and there wasn't like a, you know,

I don't know, a separation area kind of reserved.

So he wanted like an AstroTurf square

and what actually happened was Jon ordered that at eight this morning.

It cost 420 quid, which is a huge sort of misjudgment.

It's an error.

Tomorrow, one person will be given a full-time job at Iris.

With this in mind, Steve steals a chat with Ross to get his thoughts.

-How's it going?

-Yeah, I'm not overly impressed, to be honest.

-Really?

-It's just...

-It is a shambles.

-Yeah, it is a shambles.

-But who's...

The only two people actually shining right now are Jo and Carl.

Jo is really on it with the comedian, Carl's just putting in a lot of effort.

So those are the only two that are really actually doing stuff for me.

With just ten minutes to go,

there's certainly no time for the candidates to take a break.

I'm going to make sure everyone gets a box each and starts

handing out Kit Kats whilst drawing people in at the same time.

Have a break with Kit Kat and smile. Thank you.

-Guys, take a seat, have a break.

-Thank you.

Free stand-up.

We hit a thousand smiles, ladies and gentlemen!

-Yes! A thousand smiles!

-APPLAUSE

People who took charge, some people who really impressed,

some people who kind of just stood back and handed out

chocolate bars, and it's kind of... the decision's a really hard one.

I think after today and I think after the execution

of the Kit Kat challenge I think I'm the favourite for the job tomorrow.

I feel pretty confident about tomorrow.

I think that I've sort of progressed a lot since coming into this agency last week.

In terms of getting the job done and contributing to the tasks

I have gone out of my way to do that

so I've tried to do the job as best as I can.

I'm still very much the frontrunner for this competition

and I should be, you know, signing the contract any day now.

I feel pretty confident about tomorrow.

Frontrunner to this competition.

Gone out of my way to do that.

It's their last night together

and the unsuspecting housemates think it's a chance to relax.

I've told everyone to their face

how I felt about the last couple of weeks,

and you all annoying me, apart from him.

Little do they know that they're hanging out with the person

who'll decide which one of them gets the job.

You're actually not bad people, which is good.

And I had a good chat with Ross... That's your name, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's not a bad lad. Bit boring but he's fine.

-And I respect you for that, so...

-You don't know me!

-Fair play.

He's a nice guy.

You, no matter what you do you still bore me to death.

Danielle, you're a lovely person

and, you know, you've gone downhill the last couple of days.

Carl, Carl's my baby.

I love this guy, he's a funny guy.

Is he good at the job? Phhph, rubbish.

THEY LAUGH

'I genuinely didn't think

'I would care about the people as much as I do.'

Like they're all, they're all great in their own different ways.

They're all very different, which makes it even harder for me.

Tomorrow, yeah, delivering the best news to some people

and the worst news to others.

Effectively I'm breaking up with three people

and telling someone I'd like to see them for a very long time.

For the last ten days, the four wannabe account executives

have competed for the job of a lifetime.

Today the winner will be announced.

It's the morning of one of the biggest days of my life.

They know what they're looking for and I hope it's me.

If not, I mean, I think it might be Carl or Ross.

I think if I had to sum up the past two weeks in three words

they would be intense, real and affirming.

Despite my somewhat annoying ways, you know,

I can bring a lot to the table when needed to.

When it comes to it I can work in a team.

If you'd asked me that question at the start of this I would have said absolutely no way.

I literally do think that this is going to be life-changing for me.

Even though I don't think I'm going to win the job,

this experience is really going to help who I am and my career.

Ross not only has the pressure of deciding their fate

but later will also reveal his true identity.

It's crunch time for me.

I know what's happening today and I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm sure one other person's going to be very happy with it

so it's going to be a strange day and one I'll remember for ever.

The group are heading into Iris

to find out who's got the job of account executive.

They're also about to get the shock of their lives.

It's been a pretty tough two weeks for you,

you've been chucked in at the deep end,

you've been given real briefs from real clients.

This is a tough time for us cos we have to make a decision now.

Although in normal situations it would be myself

that made the decision when it comes to

employing talent within the agency,

I think there's somebody who is going to be a much better person

than myself to actually make the decision

when it comes to which of the five candidates we actually take on.

And that person is sitting here in the room.

What the hell?

-Is this actually happening?

-I'm so confused right now.

That person is one of the most talented account managers

that we've got within the agency.

It's going to be Ross.

-Oh, my gosh!

-Oh!

Oh, my gosh.

-Oh, my God!

-Oh, dear!

Oh, my God!

I have been working at Iris for the last two years,

I'm an account manager here

and this has become the greatest job interview

and the most insightful job interview you're ever going to have.

This now means that nothing you have said

can be taken out of context,

that you've not had to impress me, but you have.

All of you have.

If you could all leave the room now

and then Ross will feed back to you individually.

This is so confusing.

This is the first time in the last week or two weeks

that I'm actually lost for words.

My mind is blank,

I just feel like...cos he's probably the one out of all of you...

I'm getting emotional...

..who I've spoken to on a level... It just feels...

Wow. Confusing.

-Hey, don't worry about it, come on.

-What's so upsetting?

I don't know. It just feels like...

That's good, because you said that they don't know the real you, but they do.

Because Ross knows the real you and that's more important than them thinking that they know who you are.

-And that's good.

-It's just really like, literally...

-Overwhelming?

-Yes.

Win or lose, I know it'll be made on the right decision.

I know he's got a full picture of me and I know he knows the real me.

I'm shocked but I think my chances of getting the job have increased.

It'll be quite cringeworthy if I'm wrong but we'll just have to wait and see what happens

but, yeah, I think I've nailed it.

-Hello.

-Hello.

Ross, if that is your real name.

It is definitely Ross.

-Hello.

-Hi, Jo.

-Hi, Carl.

-Ross, how's it going?

Good. Please have a seat.

Ah, right.

First of all I do want to point out that you've done incredibly well.

You can't teach creativity,

you can't teach someone to be a creative genius.

I'm definitely not calling you a creative genius

but you were the one that came up with the good ideas.

You're very professional, always on point,

always understanding how to present.

It's hard not to smile when you're around you

and that is something that's so transferable to this job.

You're worth your weight in gold, Carl,

in terms of creating relationships.

You get a client brief and you know exactly what needs to be done

and how it's going to be done and that's a gift.

To cut to the chase, there's one job.

Ultimately, I would...

-I'd like to offer you a job here at Iris.

-Thank you.

Come over here. THEY LAUGH

-Well done.

-I'm so chuffed.

-Good, you should be!

I couldn't be happier with this result,

I mean, it's the best outcome I could have hoped for.

I definitely want to go into the advertising industry.

In fact, I am in the advertising industry now. Yes!

I think they made a decision based on what

they were looking for in a candidate and if I wasn't that person

then that's something they obviously weren't looking for.

It's been very difficult at times to sort of bite my tongue

and fit into a team.

But, you know, I've realised that sometimes it's worth trying

not to cause too much friction, for the benefit of everyone.

It's been the most truthful job interview I've ever had.

Gets a fully rounded picture so it's the fairest way to do it

and because of that I'm not disappointed by the result.

I'm really happy to have Carl.

He's a great guy, he's so nice

and friendly and funny, so I can't wait for him

to get stuck in just as much as he can't himself.

There's no way that any interview could possibly compete

with what we've just been through.

This is getting to know real people

in real situations to offer them a real job.

# I want to sing

# I want to shout

# I want to scream till the words dry out

# So put it in all of the papers

# I'm not afraid

# They can read all about it

# Read all about it

# Oh... #

Next time, four hopefuls go head-to-head

to win a job at one of the UK's fastest-growing websites.

It was stupid.

But what happens when they discover a company mole has infiltrated the group?

That person is sitting at this table right now.

# I want to sing

# I want to shout

# I want to scream till the words dry out

# So put it in all of the papers

# I'm not afraid

# They can read all about it

# Read all about it

# Oh. #

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