When the campus environment and job-seeking environment are changing, how can operators continue to grow?

It is not an exaggeration to say that good operations are achieved by spending money. From a disciplinary perspective, operations is a combination of various basic disciplines, supplemented by a lot of practice and innovative attempts. Therefore, it is impossible to "educate" good operations.

Operations is a position spawned by new industries. It changes so quickly with the industry and its measurement is non-standardized that it is difficult to include it independently in the formal continuing education system.

Similar to general positions, operations growth also has "standards" and is highly dependent on personal "talent" and circumstances, but the difference is the unique growth process and height achieved. Today I want to chat about the growth environment (dilemma) and process of operations. Just like a guide for life, you can only choose if you understand it.

Campus environment changes

In addition to computer technology, the major in colleges and universities that is directly related to operations is "e-commerce". This major is actually a product of the overall national informatization construction. It includes a full set of courses such as website building, marketing , and programming. It has also been a non-mainstream major for a long time.

It was not until the development of Alibaba that this major was equated to a certain extent with what is now called " e-commerce ", and many people went on to open Taobao stores while studying this major.

From the coverage of the courses, it can be seen that the system of this major is not profound, but it combines and instills originally different links and majors such as technology, marketing, logistics and payment. Even e-commerce companies do not particularly favor this major.

Around the year before, many webmasters became famous and made money through self-study of technology and online marketing; the operators of portal websites and communities are not from any professional background, but are mostly people from news media, marketing or who are interested in content; Alibaba's operations are not limited to any major and have their own training system.

So working for an Internet company was not a mainstream choice at the time, and I couldn’t even explain it clearly to my parents.

Around 2010, it was still the PC era and there was no Weibo or WeChat . Internships and campus recruitments at large companies are one of the very few ways to “go online” on campus, and operations are just a sideline. Some product books such as "Jiewang" have gradually emerged, and the cases are only about product analysis of BAT, NetEase and Shanda. In addition, these companies have very strict operational selection procedures, and there are no more guiding voices around. A large portion of the operators that eventually join the network are there simply because of the company's reputation or because they stumbled into the network by accident.

After 2014, the learning environment has been greatly broadened from many aspects:

1. With the development of mobile social networking and new media , information channels have increased and the speed has accelerated. For example, follow Weibo and WeChat public accounts of various industries;
2. The entrepreneurial wave has increased internship opportunities, allowing people to participate in industry competition and learn skills in advance;
3. The development of vertical recruitment and vertical platforms, and professional learning methods, such as Lagou.com, Renrenshishi.com , and many online training courses and community sharing.

Judging from the changes in the campus environment, it is not that the education on campus itself has been deepened, but rather that the development of the industry has penetrated back into the campus, resulting in the output of accumulated knowledge and more practical opportunities. This is a good move forward.

But what is frightening is that many innovative companies are over-drawing on campus due to development needs. For example, there is a lack of a training system, and there are too many low-end internships, and the inculcation of bad motivations (brushing orders) in the process of business development. These will cause many students to lack respect for the industry and business, and not cherish opportunities, and even waste their studies.

Job hunting environment

First, let’s talk about the changes in demand

Obviously, the development of the industry will drive the supply of jobs (otherwise Lagou.com would not have risen), including the launch of new projects by large companies, such as Taobao Xianyu, DingTalk, and Alipay Credit; the onlineization of traditional companies, such as traditional financial Internet finance projects and the e-commerce of manufacturing; and the rise of the entrepreneurial wave. These opportunities will release a large number of job demands.

In addition to the above-mentioned large-cycle trends, there are also small-cycle influences. For example, this year's wave of O2O project closures has forced many people to leave their jobs, including fresh graduates who became unemployed as soon as they got employed; and early-stage startups have greatly increased their recruitment thresholds (3-5 years), reducing the demand for basic operational positions.

Let’s talk about the changes in requirements

Large companies and startups that have gone through their early stages of development have clearly raised their social recruitment requirements. One is a hard indicator of years of experience, and the other is senior single skills and cases. For example, it was not difficult to recruit a community operation expert with more than three years of experience before 2013, but it seems to be stretched now. From this perspective, what this means for operations is that it is best not to change jobs randomly or to cross borders randomly!

Under the pressure of survival, the operational requirements of entrepreneurial products become more urgent. Directly replicable operational experience , directly importable resources, industry experience, etc. What this usually means for operations is that it is better to choose an ongoing industry where there is enough and ongoing things to do, rather than just eating when there is meat!

In terms of one's own qualities, personality and short-term interests are part of the trend of the times, but they cannot resist the laws of business needs: quality, continuity of experience, and plasticity of growth.

Operational Growth

Operation is a combination of art and rationality. Operation methods have regulations and can be evaluated by results, but there is no "standard". Standards get things done, but they don’t optimize results.

This is a job that requires "talent", and your "talent" drives the direction and extent of your efforts. To give a simple example, when doing user operations , you think that users' questions or answers can be responded to as quickly as possible, and users should be very happy and will trust the product more. You will refresh the status every 10 minutes or 5 minutes and pay attention at all times. On the contrary, regulations only allow you to check responses at regular intervals every day, which has a completely different effect.

Operational "talent" needs experience to develop. Here are several stages of growth:

Stage 1: Standardizing things

Complete assigned tasks and requirements according to specifications. Use the general requirements of several different positions to illustrate.

• Content editing and operations, including product theme content, community content, new media content, etc. According to the implementation specifications, the target amount of material collection, content release, and certain data tracking and analysis are completed at a fixed time every day.
• User interactive operations remain active through topics and activities. According to the implementation specifications, it is usually necessary to ensure the number of topics initiated within the period, the number of activities, the average time requirements for the timeliness of user interactions, etc., and bear the data results of the number of UGC and the number of activity participants.
• Traffic promotion, including free traffic optimization, advertising , and ground promotion . According to the execution specifications, ensure the daily delivery cost, average cost and traffic target, or the average target within the cycle, guided by data statistics.

In addition to the fine division of labor and background requirements of medium and large enterprises, for operations, functions such as copywriting and planning can generally be included in the above-mentioned intelligent functions. Ultimately, it is to provide operational ideas based on the understanding of products and users. If there are no good ideas, it is simply because there are not enough cases known and users do not have a deep understanding.

During this growth phase, there are several goals: thorough execution, optimizing methods to get results, and accumulating learning (industry, cases, competitors, users).

So how can we do better during this period? There are a few points:

1. The whole story. Understand the business line or even the company's operating system, data trends and causal relationships, and figure out the significance of everything you do;
2. Information acquisition. Get used to collecting learning content, industry and competitor dynamics;
3. feedback. Only by offering ideas and feedback can we receive suggestions and be aware of our shortcomings.

Phase 2: PM differentiation

During the advanced period, there are two differentiations similar to M and P. The first is to become a grassroots operations manager, leading a small team to complete the overall goals of a specific function and assuming management responsibilities.

The second is to have a more continuous accumulation of skills in a single field. For example, if you are in promotion, you can take charge of all promotion-related duties, or continue to study and operate advertising, SEO , ASO , etc.

1. The first situation usually includes different management functions such as local promotion team, new media multi-platform operation, and traffic promotion. Focusing on goal achievement, become the setter of execution standards, supervise the execution process, and pay attention to the results.

In terms of ability, you need to be familiar with all aspects of the execution process so that you can find out the problems and optimization directions through the results.

In terms of management responsibilities, he/she is a link between superiors and subordinates, fully understands and conveys the instructions of superiors, reasonably breaks down the goals into the matters that each person is responsible for, and formulates incentive mechanisms.

2. The second advanced scenario is to gain experience in primary operations and strive to obtain opportunities to practice on larger or different types of platforms, such as from a small company to a large company, from auxiliary functions to core business, from PC experience to mobile experience, etc.

Through the accumulation of multiple platforms, we have experience in different types of platforms, or have created representative cases.

Stage 3: Global Vision and Control

Operators with deeper qualifications include those who have been in a single industry or (large) platform for many years, are familiar with the development and process of projects, have standardized management level, have control, do things in an orderly manner, and are confident enough.

The other type is those who have worked in different projects, have been through the trials and tribulations of the market, have seen various pitfalls, and have broad knowledge and strong learning abilities.

Both types of people have their own strengths and weaknesses, but the same thing is that when facing the projects they are responsible for, they must be able to control everything. You need to know everything about your competitors, predict the different development stages and operating strategies of products, talent needs, and supervise the execution process.

From a management perspective, each growth stage of operations has clear measurements, marking the standards you need to achieve to reach the next level.

The volatility of the Internet market means that an operations career path can easily be changed by a single choice. If we can know the stages of growth earlier, it can help us make better choices and improve our knowledge system.

Growth Misconceptions

Finally, let me summarize some misconceptions in the process of operational growth.

1. Pay equal attention to execution and summary. Obviously, he has done a lot of things involving many operational aspects, but when his resume is summarized, it is just a variety of miscellaneous affairs, and his ability is immediately downgraded. The reason is that they did not understand the "ins and outs" mentioned above and just executed it passively.

Enriching operational knowledge and having a weekly report and review system will be very helpful.

2. Inconsistent in appearance and reality. Some people feel that they work hard and are dedicated to their work, but they still don’t get any recognition. I believe that most operations managers have the same requirements for talent quality: strong execution, high enthusiasm, and divergent thinking.

Working hard does not mean doing things silently, but letting the leader know what you have done and providing feedback on the results. If you have difficulties, you should raise them and come up with solutions yourself, rather than telling them about the difficulties only when you are pressed. We should pursue data results rather than just completing them according to specifications.

Also, give more ideas! Give more ideas! More ideas

3. About leaving the job and looking for a job. First, understand the different growth stages of operations and find a growth direction that suits you. Only then will you have a basis for your choice, rather than blindly following whoever gives you milk.

The second is to make a correct assessment of the current situation of the individual and the company. The so-called "nothing to learn and no room to develop" can be seen through at a glance, or it can be due to a mismatch of abilities or temporary dissatisfaction.

Loyalty and tolerance are also qualities.

Operational "standards"

Use standards (processes, historical data references) to guide operations, use "talent" to lead operational optimization, use results to evaluate operational effectiveness, and use management to measure operational growth. These are the four major standards of "manufacturing" operations.

Operational growth depends 70% on standards and 30% on chance. Although it is ever-changing, it can be traced back.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article @天佐 Compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion), please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!