Ignition Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Produced by Burning Finance
Author 丨Hou Yanting
Editor 丨Rao Xiafei
"What's it like not to open a single for three months?" On the afternoon of April 25, in a headhunting WeChat group, there were headhunters who asked such questions.
The wave of layoffs and recruitment of Internet companies has affected not only job seekers on the shore, but also downstream headhunting consultants. In the past, during the peak recruitment season of "gold, silver and four", the employees of large factories jumped jobs in a lively way, but this year it was a silence. The Internet headhunting business of "annual income of millions" has also been greatly frustrated.
"For example, there were dozens of companies hiring for a position a year ago, and only a few companies were hiring years later." Xiaoming Xiaoming, an Internet headhunter who recently entered the industry, told Burning Finance that after the year, Internet companies collectively reduced recruitment, many candidates passed the interview, and when they reached the stage of salary negotiation, they were notified to lock HC (that is, headcount, recruitment quota), "So there are many yellow lists." ”
In April, the "Survey Report on the Flow and Retention of Internet People in the First Quarter of 2022" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by 51job 51 showed that as of the end of the first quarter of 2022, half of the companies surveyed by the Internet people surveyed had laid off employees.
Against the backdrop of employer-side recruitment and rising active/passive turnover rates, the report shows that 55.7% of internet respondents still plan to jump jobs in 2022, but only 4.3% have achieved this goal in the first quarter.
Previously, the "Supply and Demand Market after the Spring Festival in 2022" released by 5job 51job pointed out that although the Internet/e-commerce industry still ranked in the top five in the number of new jobs released after the holiday, the number of new jobs declined, from the first place in 2021 to the fourth place this year.
Source/ 2022 Spring Festival after the market supply and demand market burning finance screenshot
A product manager in Shenzhen told Burning Finance, "This year is really sluggish, I invested seventy or eighty resumes, and finally only interviewed four, and the salary is not high." Last year, as long as the resume was put away, there were many HR active contacts. Instead of leaving her job, she continued to look for a job.
In this situation, Internet headhunting also has to look for new opportunities to transform and survive. Xiaoming said that his headhunting company is now focusing on the layout of long-term directions such as automatic driving and artificial intelligence, "first accumulate some talents in these future trend areas, and the follow-up will also be helpful." ”
Alice, who has been engaged in the headhunting consultant profession for more than 12 years, told Burning Finance that "Internet +" is still promising, as a headhunting consultant, we must pay attention to the new business of Internet companies, and pay more attention to the long-term development of the industry. "Don't narrowly understand the Internet industry, artificial intelligence, new energy, new car manufacturing forces, including the digitalization of manufacturing, are closely related to the Internet."
She believes that Internet headhunting should actively adjust to the direction of hard technology and other directions, if you do not reserve talents in advance and learn new industries, you will be eliminated.
Big factories shrink
"The shrinkage of the Internet industry is very serious. Because Ali and Tencent have reduced HC, and they are both employers who spend 1 billion yuan a year on headhunting fees, these two companies have shrunk their recruitment, and the entire (Internet headhunting) industry has a sharp decline of 2 billion yuan in revenue. Li Sheng, who has been engaged in the headhunting consultant profession for nearly 7 years, told Burning Finance, "Ali and Tencent are in a mess, and there are very few open recruitment positions." ”
Burning Finance was informed that on April 13, the Ali spring recruitment process was basically suspended, and a number of fresh graduates who participated in the interview of summer interns were notified that the HC had been locked.
A job seeker interviewing Ant Financial told Burning Finance that he submitted his resume on March 17, completed the first and second rounds of interviews in March, and agreed on the third round of interviews on April 7. But on April 13, Ali HR called him to tell him that the position HC was locked and the interview process was over.
In a similar situation, another job seeker who participated in the spring recruitment of Tmall Supermarket also confirmed to Burning Finance that the "spring recruitment process was suspended".
There are also some Ali candidates who have passed the final interview, but the offer has not been successfully approved. A job seeker interviewing ali experience designer position said that she was pushed by the department leader and passed the HR interview, but the interview process has been in the "offer approval".
Fan Fan, who interviewed Ali Marketing, told Burning Finance that she waited for three weeks after the end of the meeting, and saw the interview process end on April 13. "I went to ask for interview feedback, and the interviewer in the department replied that he was very satisfied with all aspects of me, but because the number of places was very small, and there were many excellent competitors, he did not hire me."
She believes that the department should be recruiters, but there are few HC, she can't compete with other gods, "the original elite, the sub-elite, the sub-elite can enter, and now there is less HC, as long as the elite of the elite." She expressed disappointment.
An internal employee of Ali revealed to Burning Finance that the department leader clearly said that Ali almost locked HC in its entirety, "basically no recruitment, there may be so many departments with HC." ”
Tencent's recruitment situation is also almost similar to Ali's, and even the situation that the offer has been obtained and the application department has been abolished.
On April 21, Xiao Ke, a fresh graduate, told Burning Finance that she had previously signed a tripartite agreement with Tencent, but now the project team has been abolished, "Now I can only wait for the notice, and many students who are in a similar situation have inquired, and Tencent has not yet seen the situation of 'destroying the three parties'." I'm worried about it now, but let's get busy with graduation first. ”
The situation of other fresh graduates is also not optimistic. A job seeker who participated in Tencent's school recruitment said that he entered the final interview, but "hung up" after 15 days of "recruitment evaluation", "HR said there was no HC." ”
Recently, a number of college students interviewing the WeChat Division received a notice that "Tencent temporarily does not arrange summer internships, no regular defense, no autumn recruitment, and 2023 (graduates) suggest another plan." ”
A working employee of a large factory also interviewed Tencent, she told Burning Finance, interview WeChat video number, the sixth round of interviews have passed, but the offer has been "in the process". "I have long lost hope for Tencent, so I will stay in the original place to see the opportunity." She said.
In addition to Ali and Tencent, according to relevant insiders, the Meituan group has also recently suspended most of the job recruitment, but the recruitment process will continue for students who have previously submitted resumes, are still in the process, and have not received thank-you letters. A few days ago, a job seeker confirmed to Burning Finance that she had just completed the second round of interviews of the US group, and the process was still in progress.
The "Report" shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the respondents submitted their resumes more than 12 times per capita, and nearly 40% of them did not receive any interview invitations in the first quarter, and only 9.0% of them received interview invitations greater than 5 times. Converted into a resume delivery / interview invitation ratio of less than 20%, that is to say, for every 10 resumes submitted by Internet people, there is only a probability of less than 2 interview invitations.
Internet headhunting changes careers
The shrinking of the Internet factory has indeed hit the Internet headhunting industry.
Li Sheng introduced that the headhunting company of the KA model (large customer model) will die if it does not transform and do not do hot fields. "For example, KA Ali's, a full-time headhunting company that does Ali job recruitment, now Ali has no job recruitment, which is equivalent to no business at all."
Now, Li Sheng mainly does Headhunting services for Internet algorithms and big data-related positions, "The core of the Internet is growth, layoffs without growth, (headhunting) to do jobs with demand." ”
He admitted that headhunting must do recruitment in popular areas, such as chips, car building, unmanned driving, meta-universe, etc., "not hot, recruitment demand is less, and to do it is not to go with yourself." It must be that Party A has a demand to do the corresponding position, and the headhunting is to provide Party A with high-quality candidates, and the hot ones in the field are done. ”
Xiaoming is still an Internet headhunter, but she said that in the case of layoffs and recruitment in the general environment, the thinking of doing recruitment has also changed.
"In the past, I felt that this person was suitable for which companies and positions, and I directly recommended it." Now that the situation is not good, they will learn more about the reasons and needs of job seekers to jump ship, consider more from the perspective of career development, and pay more attention to the background of the company and the team, hoping that they can stay in the new company for a longer time. Bob said.
In fact, as in the above-mentioned Ali and Tencent recruitment situation, even if the candidate is enough to interview to the last level, it may not be able to get an offer, or it cannot be regularized during the probation period, and this is the Internet headhunting, which is a "running order" again and again, which means that all the work done to achieve recruitment is in vain.
Xiaoming said that in the second half of last year, compared with now, there have been many changes, "there are some job seekers, he talked about the positions he did not look up to when he talked about years ago, and now he can't talk about it." She said that the pressure is quite high now, "Running several orders a month, is the pressure big?" Definitely big. But just relax and do what you can do. ”
Fortunately, Xiaoming's headhunting company has a wider range of involvement and a large number of customers, and it is now a little more difficult, but it will not be unable to last. She pointed out that some Internet headhunting companies usually do not have many reserve customers, which must be more affected. "These companies usually focus on developing a few customers, and when these customers have no demand, it is difficult to find new cooperation."
"First, other companies have stable cooperation, and they have no advantage. Second, it is difficult to get the same resources when you first come in (new areas). Now it is a relatively large company, and the original number of customers can survive if the number of customers it has cooperated with is sufficient. She analyzed that the number of customers in the overall industry is greatly reduced, and for specific headhunting companies, it is divided into (after the reduction of customers) the difference between customers who are enough and no customers.
At present, Xiaoming pointed out that byte and Xiaohongshu still have recruitment needs, "There are some adjustments within Xiaohongshu, and if bad projects are cut, there will be certain layoffs, but there are still normal recruitment needs after adjustment." ”
On April 21, Xiaohongshu was exposed to layoffs, saying that the proportion of layoffs accounted for about 10-20%. In response, Xiaohongshu responded that since March, Xiaohongshu has carried out annual performance appraisal of enterprises in accordance with the usual practice, and carried out normal personnel replacement based on the results of annual performance appraisal. About 200 employees negotiated the termination of labor relations due to unqualified performance, accounting for about 9% of the total number of employees.
Xiaoming believes that for Internet headhunting, it is necessary to focus on the new business and new needs of cooperative companies, and at the same time try to develop new cooperative customers, and transformation is imperative.
Where does the Internet industry go from here
"From the layoffs of millions of people in education and training in 2021, to 2022 so far, Ali and Tencent guan 90% of the demand, and then to the multi-department of Didi, Jingdong multi-department, Meituan multi-department, Xiaomi, Maoyan and other more than 20 enterprises have accumulated more than 100,000 layoffs." In 2022, the domestic Internet is full of anxiety. Li Sheng analyzed.
Starting from Sina and Youku, experiencing the reshuffle of used car websites, to the shared travel melee, and then to the field of automatic driving, Alice has experienced the history of change in the Internet industry along the way. In her view, today's Internet industry is also in a normal transformation cycle. "Big factories are optimizing and laying off employees every year, and now the epidemic has also affected some companies, and now they are freezing HC, no longer blindly recruiting, but solving existing problems."
"But that doesn't mean that Internet companies don't hire." She pointed out that the big factories are also transforming and laying out new businesses, for example, Byte's acquisition of Pico for 9 billion yuan last year is to enter the VR field. "Pico is to make VR glasses, and it also belongs to the field of hard technology." Therefore, she believes that the current Internet headhunting, the transformation to hard technology is a good direction.
"The recruitment of large factories is like this, around their new business units to do. Because the big factories are doing some transformation, or doing new business, although many of their departments lock HC, but the new business will continue to recruit people, (headhunting) to do these. She analyzed.
Previously, the "2022 Spring Job Market Trend Observation" (hereinafter referred to as the "Observation") released by the BOSS Direct Employment Research Institute pointed out that due to the impact of policy regulation in 2021, the rapid expansion of the Internet industry began to cool down. In the spring of 2022, although the recruitment scale of the Internet industry still maintained growth, with a year-on-year growth rate of 13%, it was at the lowest point since 2019, and the intensity of job search was higher than in previous years. On the whole, the core technology and product positions still maintain a relatively dense demand for talents, the demand for talents in the main Internet technology directions has increased, while the competition for job seekers in operations and sales positions has intensified significantly.
Source/Spring 2022 Job Market Trend Watch Burn Finance Screenshot
The "Report" also pointed out that from the perspective of the supply and demand comparison of job recruitment and delivery, the technology/testing/operation and maintenance of the core of the Internet still maintains a relatively intensive demand for talents, mainly reflected in the demand for high-tech positions represented by artificial intelligence and digital twins, which maintain double-digit high growth year-on-year, and relevant practitioners still have a large space and opportunity to choose a career. The competition for product/operation/planning, sales/business/pre-sales, customer service/audit/after-sales and other positions has further intensified with the "cost reduction and efficiency increase" of the Internet.
As Alice and Li Sheng mentioned, hard technology has now become a popular recruitment field. "Observation" pointed out that since the peak season of spring recruitment, the recruitment scale of high-end manufacturing fields such as new energy, aerospace, integrated circuits, medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, and industrial automation has grown rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of more than 40%, which is prominently manifested in engineering professional and technical positions.
Source/Spring 2022 Job Market Trend Watch Burn Finance Screenshot
"Observation" shows that high-end manufacturing enterprises are seeking breakthroughs in the direction of digitalization and intelligence, in the spring of 2022, the recruitment scale of digital technology /IT positions in high-end manufacturing industry increased by as much as 75% year-on-year, and it is second only to the most core engineering and technical professional positions in terms of growth and job proportion, after about five years of rapid growth, digital jobs have become one of the pillar job types in the manufacturing industry.
It is worth noting that the "Observation" also pointed out that under the influence of policy regulation, in the spring of 2022, job seekers in the education and training and real estate industries are also facing a more fierce competitive environment, and both industries have experienced a contraction in the scale of recruitment. Practitioners in the real estate and education and training industries are actively seeking career opportunities in other fields, and in addition to this industry, the preferred industry of both is the Internet, which further intensifies the job competition in the Internet industry.
But in Xiaoming's own view, the Internet is still a relatively good track. "It's just that companies are experiencing different problems that they need to break through at the moment." After all, the bubble of the Internet in the past few years was relatively large, and now it is better to knock it off and start to do some things seriously again. ”
In fact, people still yearn for the Internet industry. The report surveyed the willingness of the next job industry, and 84.1% of the Internet respondents still said they would choose the Internet industry.
"Is the internet still worth it? Although the current wave of layoffs is indeed obvious, there are few opportunities to choose a career, and it is more difficult; however, the current recruitment is the core business and the growth of the business, so this is also an advantage. Li Sheng analyzed that for job seekers, it is necessary to analyze the growth and stability of companies, platforms and businesses, "businesses like community group buying tend to be discouraged and walk on multiple legs." ”
"The Internet is basically very anxious, but we still have to be optimistic about finding a way." Li Sheng said to Burning Finance.
Resources:
"2022 Q1 Internet People Mobility and Retention Survey Report", source, worry-free future;
"Supply and Demand Market after the Spring Festival in 2022", source, worry-free future;
"Spring 2022 Job Market Trend Observation", source, BOSS Direct Employment Research Institute.
*The caption and some of the illustrations in the text are from Visual China.
*Xiaoming, Alice, Li Sheng, Fan Fan, and Xiao Ke are pseudonyms
*Disclaimer: In no event shall the information herein or the opinions expressed herein constitute investment advice to any person.