Author: Wei Wen

"It's a little unmovable, this time I am ready to take a break for a while, and then go to traditional car companies or supply chain companies to find new opportunities." Zhu Feng, who just left an autonomous driving company, told First Financial Reporter.

At the beginning of 2022, Zhu Feng left a traditional luxury brand car company and joined a new force car company, and his work content crossed from traditional chassis tuning to autonomous driving testing. At that time, Zhu Feng felt that he had made a career shift, from an increasingly marginalized machine to a hot artificial intelligence and autonomous driving track.

However, in less than a year, Zhu Feng has experienced business adjustments and layoffs of new car companies, and after joining an autonomous driving company at the end of 2022, Zhu Feng, who has always felt that it has been difficult to adapt to the involution work, recently chose to voluntarily leave and reconsidered traditional jobs such as chassis and engine testing that seem to have been marginalized.

Around 2015, new force car companies sprang up, and at that time, new force car companies eager to build basic capabilities such as automobile design and manufacturing poached talents from traditional car companies with salaries far beyond the industry level; After a short winter in 2019~2020, starting from 2021, with the entry of technology companies such as Xiaomi and Baidu, and the "Wei Xiaoli" aiming to enhance the automotive platform and autonomous driving, software and other related manpower, the industry has once again set off a war of grabbing people.

During 2021, a number of automotive industry practitioners said in an interview with reporters that whether it is salary level, promotion system, or competitiveness, traditional companies are difficult to compare with new force car companies, and traditional car companies that were regarded as fragrant in the past have gradually become besieged cities.

But in the last two years, things have changed.

Stability becomes an important factor in attracting talent

"Going out at 9 or 10 p.m. to test is the norm, and working overtime on Saturdays and Sundays is also the norm, and it's okay to work overtime occasionally, but it's a bit overwhelming to be like this all the time. And this overtime will not be a short-term state, after the landing of high-speed intelligent driving, this year the company is also ready to accelerate the promotion of urban intelligent driving assistance systems. Zhu Feng told reporters that as the date of the company's intelligent driving assistance mass production project approaches, frequent overtime has become the norm.

It's not just self-driving companies that are involving.

At the end of 2022, emerging automakers represented by NIO, Xpeng, and Li Li have all started to adjust their internal process structures to cope with the increasingly competitive new energy vehicle market. At the same time, the new forces of "increasing income without increasing profits" have also begun to pay more attention to "reducing costs and increasing efficiency." ”

"This year's focus is on improving human effectiveness, not reducing staff or shutting down projects, and pursuing more output with the same manpower." Li Bin, chairman and CEO of NIO, said this at the beginning of the year. He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, also publicly stated that the company's operational efficiency needs to be improved, and president Wang Fengying worked seven days a week, which made everyone very volatile and put a lot of pressure on the team.

The high-intensity workload and changeable workflow and architecture have made some talents who have transferred from the traditional automobile industry to the new car companies feel uncomfortable.

Li Pengcheng, vice president and CMO of Avita Technology, previously said in an interview with the first financial reporter that intelligent electric vehicles are a new track, and there is no classic organizational structure model in the industry, and the new forces of car manufacturing will correct deviations at any time in order to maintain the efficient operation of the organization, and adjust the organizational structure, which requires employees to be able to adapt to the chaotic and changeable environment, or a special soldier and generalist, capable of working in different fields.

However, not all employees in the automotive industry can become "special forces", especially since 2022, new car companies and some autonomous driving companies have undergone significant adjustments, and news of layoffs, salary cuts or even closures is common; At the same time, many industry insiders have judged that the global economy will be under greater pressure in 2023, and traditional car companies with more stability and risk resistance will be favored by practitioners.

"In the past two years, a group of automotive industry talents have taken the initiative to return from new car companies and start-ups to traditional car companies and supply chain enterprises, especially this year, this return trend is more obvious." Wang Yu, head of recruitment at a well-known automobile supplier, told reporters that unlike traditional car companies that took the initiative to poach new car companies when transforming or deploying new businesses in the past, in the first three months of this year, the number of candidates who actively sought opportunities from traditional companies increased significantly.

Wang Yu believes that in the past few years, the sales of new energy vehicles have grown rapidly, some new energy vehicle companies have developed well, the certainty is far better than around 2015, autonomous driving companies are also in rapid development, more manpower demand and better salaries, ranks, attracting a considerable number of traditional car companies talents to join.

"Around 2021, the automotive industry grabbed people seriously, whether it is salary or position, new car companies and some startups are more competitive than traditional enterprises, in the case of continuous loss of personnel, in 2022 the company once revised the non-compete agreement, the new car companies such as Zhiji and Feifan, as well as some autonomous driving companies and chip design companies, were included in the non-compete agreement." Wang Yu said, but since 2022, many new car companies and autonomous driving companies have made business adjustments and layoffs, and more involuted work has also made some talents accustomed to the stable environment of traditional car companies not adapt.

A product senior manager who recently returned to traditional car companies from new force car companies told reporters that some new force car companies frequently adjust their business affairs, and there is no stable work process internally, and sometimes the results of overtime and involution eventually become useless work, and the company's market performance is not good, and rumors such as salary cuts and layoffs also make the company's internal hearts float. Returning to traditional car companies is for a more stable working environment.

In addition, in the past two years, whether it is foreign capital or independent car companies and supply chain enterprises, they have increased investment in ADAS, intelligent driving, software and other fields, and the demand for related talents has increased to a large extent, which has also created opportunities for some returning talents.

"But not willing employees will be able to return to the traditional automotive industry, traditional companies usually have a relatively stable salary composition and system, and in the past few years, the crowd has pushed up the self-positioning and expectations of some candidates." Wang Yu said that in the past few years, the rush to blindly give salaries is an unhealthy and unnatural state, and at the same time coaxed candidates' expectations, which may lead to some difficulties for candidates to return.

The war for talent intensifies

Around 2015, the flow of traditional automotive talents mainly flowed from strong joint ventures to independent car companies. In the years after 2016, many talents from traditional car companies began to flow to new car companies; After 2020, while expanding recruitment, leading new car companies such as Wei Xiaoli have increasingly increased their professionalism and requirements for personnel recruitment, and a new batch of new automakers such as Xiaomi Automobile, Jidu, BeyonCa and supply chain manufacturers such as CATL have become new job providers. Traditional car companies and a new batch of car-making forces have also begun to poach employees of car companies such as Wei Xiaoli in reverse.

Despite the recent poor performance of the car market, the battle for talent between companies has not stopped.

According to the TSI talent shortage index released by Liepin, the talent shortage index of the automotive industry is greater than 1, and the talent shortage ranks 7th among all industries. A senior personnel manager of a car company told reporters that in the first three months of 2022, the company recruited more than 50 new employees, and since 2023, 120 new employees have been hired.

In the first two months of this year, Wang Fengying, former vice president of Great Wall Motor, and Yi Han, former senior executive of Geely, joined Xpeng Motors, a new automaker in car manufacturing; Li Pengcheng, former assistant CEO of Xpeng Motors, joined Avita Technology, which has the endorsement of traditional car companies; Chen Siying, former deputy general manager of Lynk & Co Sales Company, has officially joined Great Wall Motor, which belongs to its own brand; Xiaomi Auto Marketing Head Zhou Yu returned to Wuling. The trend of executive mobility also reflects that the automotive industry's rush war is showing a state of stalemate.

"Our recruitment demand in the past three years has increased significantly compared with before, but it has basically been steadily improving in the past three years. However, the demand for research and development has always been the majority, and the entire market is trending towards the demand for intelligent driving and software development, which is much more than before the epidemic. Wang Yu told reporters.

According to the "2022 Aon Automotive New Energy and Intelligent Connected Network Management Practice Operation Report", in 2022, the first source of talent among traditional car companies is the new force car companies; Talents in the field of software development mainly come from Internet companies, high-tech enterprises and new car companies.

At the same time, in terms of salaries and benefits, traditional companies are accelerating to catch up with the gap between them and new car companies in the past few years.

Starting from 2022, the salary level of new automakers has ceased to be the period of start-up and the period of large-scale expansion in 2021. Zhu Feng told reporters that from a traditional luxury car company to a new force car company, his salary increase is about 30%, far from the previous level of doubling or 50% increase; When moving from a new automaker to an autonomous driving company, there was little change in salary.

In contrast, traditional car companies are trying to make up for their shortcomings in software, autonomous driving and other fields with higher salary levels. According to Aon's survey data, 40% of software talents (including intelligent driving, algorithms, and in-vehicle entertainment systems) of traditional car companies can reach the 75th percentile salary. Only 16.7% of the software talent salaries of emerging car companies can reach the 75th percentile.

"The 50th percentile is the median, and salary reaching the 75th percentile can be understood as earning in the top 100 out of 25 people. Traditional companies are making greater efforts to recruit software-related talent. Wang Yu explained.

At the same time, starting from 2022, the talent turnover rate of the new four modernizations has shown a high turnover rate. According to survey data, in 2022, the voluntary turnover rate of new four talents of new car companies will reach 20.2%, and that of traditional car companies will be 15.9%. Existing talents within the enterprise are facing the risk of rapid loss, especially the grabbing of core functional talents has spread to the initial level, and the talent grab war has become more and more intense.

Wang Yu believes that under the high turnover rate, the defense of core talents is about to break out.

(At the request of interviewees, Wang Yu and Zhu Feng are pseudonyms)