An 'Apprentice'-style event at a large Marlow company is aiming to pluck diamonds from the rough as it pits a group of would-be workers against each other in a series of tasks later this month.

Dreamed up by former BBC Apprentice series winner Lee McQueen, the ‘Raw Talent Academy’ will hold an audition day for candidates to fight it out for a place working at successful IT firm Softcat.

The process sees around 25 recruits undertake a series of real life business tasks while being assessed by both Softcat and Raw Talent Academy assessors.

And the company says at the end of the gruelling day, held on Thursday, May 28, “a number” of successful candidates will be offered a position with the business.

Raw Talent spokesman Ash Holmes said: “We look past degrees, qualifications and career histories to see the attributes required to be a sales superstar.

“We encourage organisations to look at the wider talent we have in the UK, not just graduates, and at the same time encourage new talent to make a career move which benefits both them and the businesses seeking their next generation of superstars.”

Apprentice winner Mr McQueen beat 20,000 other hopefuls to land a job with business supremo Lord Sugar in the 2008 BBC series.

Fast growing Softcat now employs around 400 people at its Fieldhouse Lane base, as well as opening satellite offices across the country.

Founded in 1993, the company moved from Wycombe to Marlow in 2004 and has built a tradition of employing university leavers through its graduate programme and is now one of Marlow’s biggest employers.

A bumper year for the business also saw it increase profits by 30 per cent to £35.5m last year, and rise to second place in the UK Great Places to Work rankings.

For more information go to: http://www.rawtalentacademy.com.