Interviews

In the past week we have interviewed for three different positions at the school/centre.  I have to admit that I have always loved interviews, even when I am the one being interviewed.  I don't know exactly why I find interviews so interesting. I guess it's because they are such a quick study of human character.  In a space of 20 - 45 minutes an important decision needs to be made, do we want this individual to work with us, to become part of our staff, to become someone we trust, care about and share our lives with?  This isn't a lot of time to make a decision that will affect us and others.  Once you've hired someone it's not very easy to 'let them go', so it's important to make the right choice. There are very few job opportunties in Haiti.  Everyone we interviewed is currently unemployed, many of them have not had a job for several years, others have never had a formal job in their life.
I find it very interesting, watching a person's mind work as they try to formulate answers to our questions, to try and say what we want to hear, when they aren't all that sure what it is that we want to hear.  Of course a big part of interviews is not what the candidate says, it is often more important what they don't say and what their body language says about them.  Sometimes they don't make eye contact during the entire interview, sometimes they give the shortest answers you have every heard, oftentimes they have no questions about the job or even our organization, sometimes they are super bubbly, other times they appear to be in pain, most are confident that they are perfect for the job.  After each interview we reconvene and discuss how it went, most times we are unanimous but sometimes it's interesting to hear how another person had a completely different take on the same interview. 
All this being said, I am happy to announce that we have two new staff members starting on Monday and another hopefully starting shortly after that.  I'm excited about working with them and seeing how they fit into our community.    We are truly blessed to find such great people and hope that we will be a blessing to them and they will be a blessing to our community.