6/18/2022
By Bennett Tung
The month of May is transformational. The heart of spring creeps gently into summer, a period characterized by rising temperatures and prolonged sunshine. For students, it’s the last sprint; the promise of summer is so close, yet still so far. They look upon the near future with sheer anticipation. And for Xiaohusai, May is all of those things: a time of transformation and excitement for the future. It’s the month where we recruit new members and welcome them to our team, and this year is no different. The Xiaohusai team always aims to recruit a few rising freshmen. That way, they can grow alongside the organization throughout their four years of high school. Thus, the first step was reaching out to the eighth grade teachers at our international school for a list of promising candidates. Meanwhile, one of our members, Junhee Lee, created an introduction video for Xiaohusai to raise awareness about our recruitment process within the high school student body. All the submissions from our interest survey combined to create a sizable group of 35 candidates.
When writing this article, I reached out to some new recruits about why they wanted to apply for Xiaohusai. A common theme, to no surprise, was helping people. “It was a way for me to integrate my own personal skills to an entire community’s interests,” said Derek Sun, a new team member that joined us this month. After the interest survey, the candidates went through two rounds of interviews, both of which allowed our team to understand their skillsets, passions, personality and work ethic. Simply looking at the copious notes that our team members took for each candidate, it was clear that everyone we interviewed had a lot to say. With passions ranging from ice skating to debate, the candidate pool was truly diverse. The decision was therefore a daunting task. Amy Wang, one of the recruiters, said, “We were really impressed by how many great candidates there were, so our decisions definitely required a lot of careful consideration and discussion." From the interviewee’s perspective, the process was a mix of emotions. ”As all the interviewers were of the same age, I felt like it was more a discussion than an interview at times. However, it was definitely very selective. When I knew there was a second round, it made me stressed, as the names on the list all seemed pretty competent for the role,” said Derek. Ultimately, we could not accept everyone; only 7 new members made the cut. For those who did, Xiaohusai is now an exciting new opportunity to create positive change in a collaborative environment. “I’m excited about developing our business!” proclaimed Andrew Kim, another one of our new members. With the influx of new talent, Xiaohusai is excited for a productive summer. Our team may change on an annual basis, but the heart of Xiaohusai does not. Our dedication for supporting the education of children in rural villages will always remain.