I don’t like interviewing.

Our Livelihood Resource Center (LRC) implementation is underway. Roopali, Mohan (Umeed faculty) and I are working towards a January launch date. The LRC is essentially a miniature “career center” for Umeed graduates where they can check e-mail, talk to a counselor about jobs / life, and search / apply for jobs (a better version of gtown’s). Meanwhile, the LRC will help Saath formally track students’ progress and provide a foundation to explore a highly-specialized training and employer staffing model.

So far we’ve received funding approval for 6 new computers, a printer and a scanner. I’m working on a marketing brochure (by working, I mean asking someone to write it for me in Gujarati). I’m also making an excel database to collect / track student progress (i made a small fist pump when I opened excel). We are also looking to hire a career counselor and a data manager.

Yesterday, we interviewed potential data managers, all of whom were former Umeed students. This was HARD. First because, I was leading the interviews and my questions had to be translated to Hindi or Gujarati which it made it challenging to get clear responses. But mainly because each student wanted the position badly, so it was difficult to separate desire from capability.

Last week, when my family was visiting, my mom and sister questioned whether they could work here because they feared becoming too emotionally attached to be productive. I felt the same way during these interviews – I wanted to hire everyone I met.