At this moment, in the various car companies in Shanghai, the competition for related talents is so fierce and fierce, and I can increasingly feel that whether or not they can adapt, a new era has come.

As fierce as the tide, unknowingly, several new forces on the head at the moment have built cars, restarting a new round of "grabbing wars."

At the beginning of the article, I first pulled the timeline back to that extremely bleak 2019. There were frequent negative events, continued financing failures, the capital chain was about to break, the company’s operations were in a hurry, and the market was sluggish. It can be said that for the aforementioned car companies In other words, it has reached the moment of life and death.

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Sai Lin, Bojun, Byton, these brands that once had a brief moment of highlight, suddenly collapsed in the eyes of the storm. Although Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal are in a better position, they can only be forced to shrink in order to survive. Tight money. Layoffs, organizational restructuring, and brain drain have all happened over time.

"There is a sense of panic spreading throughout the new forces. Many employees can't see the future and don't know where the next stop will be."

Similar panic is not limited to the bottom layer. For those traditional car company executives who have chosen to join new forces for more generous treatment or for their own ambitions, they are also choosing to "escape." Xiang Dongping, Cai Jianjun, Lu Bin, and Gu Feng, familiar names continue to appear in our field of vision.

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It is also based on this background that an article titled "Those Young People Leaving Weilai" completely went viral. In the article, those followers who once loved this car company and admired Li Bin's personal admiration gave up their long-standing persistence in their hearts, and were finally educated by reality and chose to leave.

As everyone knows, in the past 2020, as the entire market quickly stopped falling and recovered, investors with plenty of cash re-attacked, and the new cars that survived the darkest moments ushered in the dawn again. Previously, those young people who left the new forces came back, and the latter quickly became the "sweet rice cakes" of various companies.

A new workshop is about "talent" war, slowly began...

Traditional car company executives "return" new forces

On March 17, Beijing time, after Jia Yueting's bankruptcy and reorganization, after being able to get rid of the debt problem, Faraday Future (hereinafter referred to as FF), a new "veteran" car company that wants to backdoor to complete its listing in the United States and return to the domestic market, announced: Chen Xuefeng Mr. officially joined.

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The latter will serve as the CEO of FF China and report directly to FF Global CEO Bi Fukang. At the same time, Mr. Chen Xuefeng will be fully responsible for all FF China related businesses, including related project implementation, production strategy, localized product development, and user ecological construction. And Chen Xuefeng will also become a global partner of FF.

In this regard, FF Global CEO Dr. Bi Fukang said: “The joining of Mr. Chen Xuefeng is an important personnel appointment for the comprehensive acceleration of FF’s Sino-US dual home strategy. I believe his comprehensive management and operation experience in luxury car brands will accelerate the implementation of FF China’s related businesses. It is a major benefit to the development of FF's global strategy."

From the perspective of Chen Xuefeng's resume, no matter who successively worked for Changan Ford, Changan Mazda, Ford Asia Pacific Design Center, Chery Jaguar Land Rover, the same is that the company background is a traditional joint venture brand. Abandoning the current position and choosing to join FF, this company that has been controversial and notorious for a long time indeed requires courage and determination.

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What is certain is that, like Chen Xuefeng's choice, it will become a microcosm of the entire industry trend for a long time to come. Contrary to the escape in 2019, in 2021, the executives of traditional auto companies are constantly "returning" new forces.

As for the reasons, it is not difficult to understand. The promotion of power, resources, industry status, and remuneration are indispensable. From a dismantling point of view, many executives in traditional car companies, or due to their low qualifications and certain external factors, are often more likely to fall into the bottleneck period of their careers.

In contrast, after joining the new car, with the rapid promotion of positions, the power held in his hands has also doubled. Moreover, because he has accurately stepped into the track of smart electric vehicles, as a company executive, he will receive more industry and social resources than traditional joint venture car companies.

The salary, that is, what we call salary, is more than any previous position, and it is inevitable. In the future, if the company can go public, its value will skyrocket.

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Moreover, judging from the rising stock prices and market value of Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal, the position of new cars in the capital market is already more "popular" than many traditional auto giants. Among the terminals, the increase in sales and the recognition of users are also constantly improving the industry status of various auto companies. Various signs are intended to prove that the new forces built cars have renewed their appeal to the executives of traditional car companies.

However, what needs to be known in advance is, “Past experience tells us that under normal circumstances, high incomes coexist with high risks. If you want to gain power, you must take on the challenge of failure to build a car or even ruin.”

For a long time in the past, we have seen more of the moments that Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng led their respective companies after they walked out of the ICU intensive care unit. But if you are familiar with this still cruel track, you will not forget that there are also star professional managers like Dai Lei, and veteran car rims like Huang Ximing, who entered the stadium with full confidence, but in the end they only Leave "a place of chicken feathers."

"Smoke of gunpowder" on Shanghai Beach

"Recently, several new energy vehicle companies in Shanghai have started a new round of grabbing people, and have entered a white-hot stage. The main talents needed are concentrated in electronic architecture engineers, autonomous driving engineers, and intelligent Cockpit engineers and so on."

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The answer in the above paragraph is the answer I got when inquiring about the recruitment of HR of a new power car company. At present, it is not limited to recruiting capable executives. Several auto companies with sufficient funds are rapidly expanding their underlying R&D, operations, sales, and service teams.

Take the ideal car as an example. At the end of last year, it officially announced that it would set up a research and development center in Shanghai and is committed to the cutting-edge development of smart electric vehicle technology, including high-voltage platforms and ultra-fast charging technology, autonomous driving technology and next-generation smart cockpit technology. At the same time, it will also have complete research and development capabilities for new models.

At present, the recruitment work for the Shanghai R&D Center has started, and the scale of the R&D center will exceed 2,000. The final location is likely to be the Jiading District where many new forces have deployed. In a recent internal letter from all employees, the company’s founder and CEO Li Xiang expressed his thoughts on the talent competition in the smart car sector at this stage. “Traditional industrial organizations cannot match the development needs of smart electric vehicles. What is needed in the era of smart electric vehicles is smart organization."

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The implication is that some of the methods and practices of traditional car companies in recruiting talents seem to be completely unable to be copied to the new energy track. What new cars need more is the active force in the field of software intelligence. The same point of view can also be seen from the recruitment requirements released by Weilai that the talents that it mainly grabs are concentrated in the autonomous driving sector.

At the same time, as early as October last year, it was reported that Weilai Automobile is currently planning to independently develop self-driving computing chips, but the plan is still in its early stages, mainly promoted by Li Bin, chairman and CEO of Weilai Automobile.

Later, its official replied: "Nio has been continuously investing in the field of autonomous driving technology. Regarding the specific technical route of AD and the relevant details of the development of hardware and software, we will communicate when the time is right. We cannot respond to market rumors. Respond one by one."

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But when looking through the relevant information, I suddenly discovered that Weilai is recruiting chip manufacturing talents through social recruitment channels, and this is undoubtedly a very powerful "real hammer" for its self-developed autopilot chips. In the conference call after the 2020 full-year earnings report was released a few days ago, Xiaopeng Motors Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng also talked about similar issues when answering questions from shareholders.

"Starting from this year, Xiaopeng's R&D team and sales and service system personnel will have a very rapid growth. We expect that by the end of 2021, the number of R&D personnel will roughly double our previous number (up to 1,500 people). At the same time, we will also deploy a large number of technical research and development personnel in our ecosystem."

Because of the geographical advantage of the R&D headquarters in Guangzhou, Xiaopeng’s difficulty in recruiting relevant talents may not be as great as the auto companies in Shanghai. After all, in addition to new forces with Internet genes such as Weilai and Ideal to build cars, such as Evergrande and Baoneng's "real estate car making", they are also using more abundant conditions to snatch relevant talents.

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In addition, it is worth noting that SAIC Group, which has just completed the "Elephant Turn" and successively launched independent new energy brands SAIC R and Zhiji Auto, in order to get on track as soon as possible, its demand for relevant talents, especially in the electrification architecture, automatic In terms of driving and smart cockpit, it has also reached the point where it is thirsty for talents.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore all of the above, the biggest competitor at the end of the market-Tesla. In 2020, the production and sales achievements of this American car company in China, as well as the huge market growth it has, have made its head Musk understand the important position of the domestic new energy market, so it needs to be more closely tied. set".

Based on this, according to its official announcement, it has begun to recruit design directors in China. The ultimate goal is to open a "full-featured" design center in Shanghai or Beijing to design products that better cater to the tastes of the Chinese local market.

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From the information obtained so far, apart from designers and manufacturing engineers, it is completely different from the "de-PR" approach in the US domestic market. Tesla is rapidly expanding the size of its PR team in China. Needless to say, the deep meaning behind it is that China's new energy market must not be lost.

"Today, the flow of automotive talents is more toward the frontiers of technologies such as new energy, intelligence, connectivity, and autonomous driving." By chance, when I read Weibo, I suddenly saw such a sentence.

Combining this moment, in the various car companies in Shanghai, the competition for related talents is so fierce and fierce, and I can increasingly feel that whether or not they can adapt, a new era has come.

The organizational structure is "breaking and then standing", and the focus of expansion is gradually tilted towards intelligent R&D personnel, which can often deeply reflect the determination of a car company in the new energy track.

And for a long time to come, it is foreseeable that this re-launched "grabbing war" will continue to be filled with smoke.