Recruiting Troops and Buying Horses

On the bus.

Xu Yaomin and his assistant arranged for the group of applicants to disembark.

Many people on the bus revealed expressions of disappointment upon seeing the factory environment, even though they hadn't held much hope before arriving.

Huang Xiuyuan and Lu Xuedong walked over toward Xu Yaomin.

"Manager Xu, is this the first batch of applicants?"

Xu Yaomin replied with a smile, "This is the first batch. If President Huang hasn't recruited enough people, our company will arrange for a second batch to come on the 25th of this month, depending on the situation."

"Good, then let's begin!" Huang Xiuyuan led his group toward the small office building of the factory manager.

Among the applicants, a middle-aged man wearing square-rimmed glasses was observing the place without drawing attention to himself. Unlike most of the others, he was not deceived by appearances.

Based on the information provided by Kerui, this company was a newly established tech firm whose main business was waste recycling and resource reuse.

The two young men not far away were likely the company's investors.

As for the factory, he had seen some things while passing the bulletin board, and it was clear that this factory had just been acquired.

He couldn't learn much else in such a short time, but he did have some opinions on the recycling industry, which related to his previous profession.

Whether he would accept the job offer depended on the scale of the company's investment and the mindset of the investors; if this was just a vanity project, he had no interest in staying.

Soon, the two applicants ahead of him entered the office one after another.

Watching the second applicant walk out with a look of disdain on his face, he stepped into the office.

"Two interviewers, it is a great honor to participate in this recruitment. This is my resume."

"Mr. Lin, please sit." Huang Xiuyuan flipped through the resume and found that the middle-aged man before him had quite an impressive work history.

He asked curiously, "Mr. Lin, your previous resume is excellent—a technical supervisor at a subsidiary of Xinfa Aluminum and Electricity, and a deputy general manager at a Toyota joint venture in China. Why did you resign?"

"Mainly because I felt there was no room for development and wanted to switch industries," Lin Baijie replied with a smile.

"Then, Mr. Lin, how do you view the recycling industry?"

Lin Baijie thought for a moment: "This is an industry with great potential, but also one fraught with difficulties. People are always biased and prone to preconceived notions."

"Collecting scrap is certainly not as comfortable as sitting in an office, but it is easier than mining low-grade ore, isn't it?"

"That is indeed true." Lin Baijie did not deny it, then shifted the topic:

"I would like to ask, how do you intend to break into the recycling industry? As far as I know, there are recycling stations everywhere. If you enter the market directly, I'm afraid you won't be able to compete with the local stations."

Huang Xiuyuan countered with a question: "Why would we want to compete with the recycling stations?"

"..." Lin Baijie was speechless.

"Among the things discarded by humanity, the portion currently being recycled is only a small fraction of the total waste. There is still a vast amount of material that hasn't entered the recycling loop, and that is our target."

Lin Baijie asked a key question: "How do you plan to solve the issue of profitability?"

"Good question. How do we solve profitability? That is the very reason our company exists. If there were already an answer to how to recycle waste at a low cost, would it even be our turn to do it?" Huang Xiuyuan remained as calm as ever, as if everything were under control.

"One last question, how much does your company intend to invest?"

"Currently, it is 200 million."

"200 million?"

This was not a small scale; at least for the current recycling industry, this investment scale was indeed significant.

After thinking it over, Lin Baijie felt that this company had some potential, but he still had reservations and did not make a decision immediately.

Thirty applicants entered the temporary interview office one by one.

After more than five hours of interviews, both sides made their decisions. The power of decision in these interviews usually meant that a successful hire only occurred when both parties were satisfied.

Huang Xiuyuan and Lu Xuedong removed some of the people they deemed unsuitable from the list and handed it to Xu Yaomin of Kerui.

On Kerui's side, they had also collected the final intentions of the applicants. Comparing the two lists, only six applicants had passed the interview.

In the factory office, Xu Yaomin provided the list of the six remaining survivors to Huang Xiuyuan.

"President Huang, this is the list of those who passed the interview and are willing to stay."

Huang Xiuyuan flipped through it and was somewhat surprised to see that Lin Baijie, whom he favored, had chosen to stay.

"Then I will trouble you, Manager Xu. Please continue recruiting for the other positions."

"It's all in a day's work." Xu Yaomin was beaming; passing six people meant a commission of several hundred thousand, so he was naturally happy.

He hurriedly took those who hadn't passed and returned to Pengcheng.

The six who remained, besides Lin Baijie, included a legal counsel, a finance officer, an HR representative, and two technicians.

After hosting a welcome dinner for everyone.

The decisive Huang Xiuyuan convened the first high-level company meeting the very next morning.

There were only ten people in total, including Huang Xiuyuan, Lu Xuedong, Huang Weichang, Lin Baijie, the five newly hired employees, and Accountant Li, who was like a background character.

As for Huang Sixiao, he was only there to help temporarily; he still needed to look after the Fuqiang Recycling Plant and could not be counted as one of Huang Xiuyuan's company staff.

"Today's meeting is mainly to arrange everyone's positions. I will first announce the company's framework."

He conducted a preliminary setup for the company's organizational structure.

Level One: Board of Directors.

Level Two: Research Department, Industrial Department, Security Department.

Level Three: Research institutes and laboratories under the Research Department; legal team, human resources team, finance team, logistics team, various factories, and subsidiaries under the Industrial Department; security, safety inspection, internal audit, and special task forces under the Security Department.

"Lin Baijie, you will serve as the General Manager of the Industrial Department."

Clap, clap, clap... The crowd began to applaud.

"Thank you for your trust, Mr. Huang. I look forward to working sincerely with everyone to create a bright future together."

The applause rang out once again.

"Lu Xuedong, you will serve as the General Manager of the Research Department."

"Huang Weichang, you will serve as the General Manager of the Security Department."

With each position assigned, the company's makeshift team finally began to take some shape, shedding its previous state of being a scattered mess.

However, there were still too few personnel, and many people were holding multiple positions.

For instance, Huang Weichang was serving as both the General Manager of the Security Department and the Assistant to the Chairman; Lu Xuedong was also concurrently serving as the head of the Materials Laboratory and the Software Development Laboratory.

Additionally, there was one rather special individual, Accountant Li, Li Haibo, who also held the position of Financial Director for Huang's Investment Company.

Lin Baijie's Industrial Department was the truly massive division, and Huang Xiuyuan dumped a mountain of tasks directly onto him.

He instructed Lin Baijie to complete the company's name change, modify the business scope, handle laboratory applications, and manage employee recruitment and onboarding as quickly as possible.

Huang Xiuyuan, acting as the hands-off boss, was not idle; he was busy urging the laboratory construction company to come for an on-site inspection.

On the other hand, he was secretly manipulating two investment companies to short the financial market and make money.

These short-term investments over the past few days had successfully increased the total capital from 40 million USD to 43 million USD, a profit of over two million USD.

However, these were just minor skirmishes; the opportunity truly worthy of his attention would not arrive until next month, in March of 2008.

If he could seize that opportunity, his overseas assets might just multiply several times over.

Thank you all for your support, and thanks to book friends "Hao Gei Ren Dao Le" and "Yang He Shan" for their tips (ω｀)