What is the reason for the drastic reduction in external recruitment at Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu?

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Following Alibaba’s announcement in September this year that it would adjust its talent strategy and reduce campus recruitment, Baidu sent out an internal email on October 20 to freeze large-scale social recruitment.

"In view of the current business situation, the company has decided to stop hiring (hiring freeze) from now on. The offers that have been issued will continue to be valid. If there are some extremely special strategic considerations, they must be approved by Robin and me before hiring." On October 20, Liu Hui, Baidu's vice president in charge of human resources, sent an internal email to freeze large-scale social recruitment, stating that some extremely special strategic considerations require special approval from Liu Hui and Robin Li before hiring.

Baidu confirmed the authenticity of the email to the *** Financial Daily, saying that it would temporarily stop large-scale social talent recruitment to further improve organizational efficiency, but campus recruitment activities would not be affected in any way. Robin Li will also appear at the Fudan University campus recruitment site next Monday to communicate face-to-face with students.

Customized talent training

"The main reason why Baidu suspended social recruitment is not the Internet and capital winter, but more importantly to solve the internal bloat and efficiency problems. In other words, the details of the business direction need to be 'cleaned' to remove the rough and retain the fine." An industry insider who has been observing Baidu for a long time told the reporter of "*** Financial Daily".

Public data shows that since its establishment in 2000, Baidu has continued to expand its business scale after 15 years of development. Baidu currently has more than 50,000 employees. Previously, Robin Li proposed "encouraging wolf-like talents and eliminating petty capitalists" internally. Now Baidu has suspended large-scale social recruitment, indicating its determination to further strengthen organizational management and improve company efficiency. It also means that Baidu will focus more on attracting talents from the society and cultivating talents from campus recruitment systems at the talent strategy level.

In response to this matter, Baidu told the reporter of "China Business Daily": "The ultimate pursuit of efficiency is the essence of the Internet spirit, and 'small team achieves great success' is the talent concept advocated by Baidu. From now on, we will temporarily stop large-scale social talent recruitment to further improve organizational efficiency. Campus recruitment will not be affected. We are still desperately pursuing the best social talents."

It can be seen that in recent years, among the BAT Big Three, Baidu has been the most successful in attracting the world's top technical talents, including Andrew Ng, the father of Google's brain, and Zhang Yaqin (Weibo), the former director of Microsoft Research Asia.

While Baidu has suspended large-scale external social recruitment, it has emphasized that it will not change its existing campus recruitment. Robin Li will also appear at the Fudan University campus recruitment site next Monday to communicate with students face to face.

The above-mentioned industry insider who has been observing Baidu for a long time revealed to the reporter of "*** Financial Daily" that Baidu has actually raised the threshold for campus recruitment. "Traditional campus recruitment is inefficient and not very targeted. Baidu has begun to cooperate with universities to carry out customized talent training. Customization will solve the problem of shortage of corresponding talents."

For example, in April this year, Baidu and Xi'an Jiaotong University signed a strategic framework agreement in Beijing. The two parties established a plan to jointly build a big data talent innovation platform, committed to providing a new model for big data talent training.

Before Baidu, Alibaba also made adjustments to its talent strategy, but the difference is that Baidu suspended large-scale social recruitment and kept its campus recruitment plan unchanged, while Alibaba reduced the number of campus recruitment places.

Earlier, the reporter of "*** Finance Daily" learned from several insiders of Alibaba that Alibaba held a meeting on adjusting its talent strategy on September 1, 2015, which actually became the direct factor affecting the changes in campus recruitment in 2015. It is said that the overall idea of ​​the meeting was that in order to cope with Alibaba's organizational changes, it was necessary to adjust the talent strategy and select the best from the best, changing the slogan from "ordinary people doing extraordinary things" to "extraordinary people, ordinary minds, doing extraordinary things".

The reduction in Alibaba’s campus recruitment quota is one of the results of implementing the above-mentioned strategic adjustments, but the actual number of recruitment quotas is not 400 as rumored by the outside world.

In fact, at Alibaba's annual meeting in Beijing in April 2015, Jack Ma (Weibo) set the tone for Alibaba's talent strategy. He believed at the time that Alibaba's current 30,000 employees were enough, "I said that when Alibaba closes in 2012, our employee headcount must not exceed 50,000," and now plans to adopt a talent "one in, one out" strategy.

Among the BAT Big Three, unlike Baidu and Alibaba, Tencent told the *** Financial Daily: "Thanks to the Internet + strategy that has penetrated into various industries and people's lives, Tencent's products and projects have achieved rapid development this year. At the same time, we still see many rapidly emerging strategic opportunities that require talent reserves. Therefore, Tencent currently still has a large demand for technology, product, design, operation and other types of talents."

Winter has not really arrived yet

The more complex market environment requires companies to re-examine their talent needs and at the same time eliminate large company problems. These factors are the general background for Baidu and Alibaba to adjust their recruitment.

For example, Baidu has been increasing its investment in O2O, Baidu Maps, Internet finance, and iQiyi, and is competing fiercely with Alibaba and Tencent, but at the same time, it is not easy to manage 50,000 employees. In the case of no business contraction, suspending social recruitment will help it sort out its internal business and solve problems such as internal overstaffing and work efficiency.

However, judging from the situation where giants have cut back on hiring and people in the Internet circle are banding together for warmth, has the winter of the Internet really arrived?

In the view of Xiong Gang, founding partner and chairman of ANZ Capital, China's real economy as a whole is in a slowing down process, and the impact on venture capital during this period is mainly concentrated on the tightening of capital inflow and investment outflow. "The general investment logic of investors is that when the economy is strong or the economy is starting to improve, the willingness to raise funds and invest is stronger. At this time, the amount and attributes of the funds raised will change."

At the same time, tight fundraising also affects investment exports. "There are fewer people taking over now, prices are also affected, and exit channels are narrowing and becoming more difficult," said Xiong Gang. But on the bright side, "Internet technology is spreading faster, and the capital winter cycle will be shortened in the future."

Gao Hongqing, managing director of Fortune Venture Capital, believes that the worst has not yet arrived. When the capital market was crazy, many institutions only invested about 40% of their money. Over this period of time, they have gradually become cautious and reluctant to invest. After this part of the investment, there is nothing left, especially for small institutions. The transmission cycle from the secondary to the primary market is generally 6 to 9 months, which means that the real deep winter will be from the end of this year to the beginning of next year. It is difficult to predict how long this round of cold winter will last.

However, in the opinion of Internet commentator Hong Bo (Weibo), this is not the first time that the Internet industry has experienced a winter, and it does not mean that there is no chance to break out of the siege. "For example, during the technology stock crash in the United States in 2000, Google, which was only two years old, achieved rapid development while other companies were shrinking their businesses, and became the current technology giant. After all, users will not give up the products they need just because of the winter, and the winter is the best time for companies to compete for outstanding talents," said Hong Bo.