Operations recruitment surges! Cross-border industry adopts 11-hour work week

Sellers have reported that it has become difficult to recruit Amazon operations recently. Compared to 2022 , the number of Amazon operations recruited this year has increased by 57%, with the number of positions in May increasing nearly five times compared to the same period last year. The industry continues to demand new operators, and experienced operators are looking for jobs again, but they find that salaries are declining overall. For example, the base salary for operators with two years of experience in Shenzhen is rarely 8K, and there are also cases of job hopping and salary cuts in Hangzhou, Beijing and other places.

On the other hand, ChatGPT is "rectifying" the workplace. The cross-border industry has already used ChatGPT in areas such as comment analysis, listing optimization, keyword recommendation, and social media posting, and operations are like a god. Some operators will face workplace crises.

The wind is coming, Amazon's operations recruitment volume has skyrocketed

An employee of a top cross-border e-commerce company revealed that the company is now implementing the "242" policy, which means that the working hours per month reach 242 hours, an average of 11 hours per day, 22 working days per month, and a total of 242 hours. When sellers in the industry heard this, they were shocked and said, "I can't do it anymore."

A few years ago, a statement made by the boss of a large cross-border company was widely circulated : "If you leave work before 10 o'clock, just fire them. Stop talking nonsense. Why come to Shenzhen if you don't want to work overtime? Go home early." But now, the industry has passed the grassroots era, and excessive overtime intensity is no longer acceptable.

One seller commented that the "242" work system is "too outrageous": "In fact, many leading companies have two days off a week to give everyone space to relax. Maybe this company wants everyone to leave. Talented people will not choose such a company. They are all internally motivated and do not need to be forced to work by the company."

Judging from the revenue in the first half of the year, many companies need to add staff due to the increase in performance. But recruiting people has become a difficult task this year.

A seller plans to recruit 1-2 more people, but feels that it is not easy to recruit. "Isn't it said that the unemployment rate is high? Why is it so difficult for me to recruit someone? I contacted 200 people but no one responded. It was not like this last year. " In fact, many sellers have similar situations. They clearly feel that the number of people submitting resumes has decreased compared with the same period last year .

This is not an illusion. There are many companies that have recruitment needs this year. A seller conducted a survey to find out whether the number of people in Amazon's operation team has increased or decreased this year. About 29% of the sellers surveyed said that the number of people has increased, 33% chose "decreased", and another 37% of the sellers said that there has been no change.

Last year, the number of Amazon operations recruitment positions fell by 70% compared to 2021, but this year, the overall number of Amazon operations recruitment has been on an upward trend, up 57% from last year . According to statistics from Zhiyouji, in April this year , Amazon operations recruitment positions were 640, an increase of 588% compared to the same period last year; in May, there were 1.1K positions, an increase of 488% from the same period last year.

( Comparison of recruitment positions in the past two years )

The top five regions with the highest recruitment demand are Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou and Dongguan.

In May this year , there were 329 Amazon operation recruitment positions in Shenzhen, a year-on-year increase of 509%; in April there were also 163 recruitment positions, an increase of more than 10 times over last year; from March to May, the number of recruitments for this position in Shenzhen was about 2 to 3 times that of Guangzhou, and compared with the same period last year, the number of recruitments in Guangzhou has increased several times.

Recruitment demand has skyrocketed, and the salary and benefits of operations have also increased slightly. In 2023, the average salary of Amazon operations was 9.9K, an increase of 4% from 9.6K last year.

(Salary changes over the years)

According to recruitment data, the average salary for Amazon operations in Shenzhen in 2023 is 12.2K, higher than 11.7K in 2022; the average salary for this position in Guangzhou is 10.6K, up 5% from 10K in 2022. Hangzhou is no exception, with the average salary for Amazon operations rising slightly by 3% this year to 12.2K.

Cross-border companies do not have high requirements for education in operations. 56% of positions require a college degree, and 34% require a bachelor's degree. Generally speaking, recruiting companies hope that operations personnel have 1-3 years or 3-5 years of work experience so that they can get started as soon as possible; however, 30% of positions indicate that there is no limit on experience, and 3% of positions are open to fresh graduates.

Some companies explicitly do not recruit fresh graduates because they do not want to spend time on training them, so they would rather spend more money to recruit only mature operations personnel; on the contrary, some sellers believe that non-fresh graduates have some restrictions in their thinking, cannot adapt well to the requirements of their company, and are not easy to use, so they tend to recruit newbies and train them personally.

Some "senior" operators were eliminated because of their rigid thinking. A seller mentioned that the company interviewed an operator with three or four years of experience who had been working in the same company, but found that she had been "framed" by her previous company during the interview. Whether she was asked about promotion methods or operational logic, she only had a vague understanding or even answered irrelevant questions, and did not understand many routine operations. She had three or four years of experience, but her level was like a newcomer with less than a year of experience.

In terms of salary, fresh graduates in Shenzhen working in Amazon operations can earn between 4,500 and 6,000 yuan. One seller said, "We offer 6,000 yuan, and it can be higher if there are bonus points, but the quality of fresh graduates we recruit is not good, so we will try campus recruitment next year."

Liepin big data shows that cross-border e-commerce talents are distributed in the south and north, with the top 10 cities in terms of talent share being Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chongqing, with Beijing being the only northern city . In the past two years, cross-border e-commerce export sellers have begun to expand from Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places to the central and western regions, many of which are motivated by the consideration of reducing employment costs.

In terms of mobility, the cross-border e-commerce talent flow in East China is the most active, at 45.41%, far higher than other regions; the talent flow activity in South China and North China ranks second and third respectively, and the flow of talent in the industry is concentrated in East China and South China.

From an employment perspective, first-tier and new first-tier cities have strong demand for cross-border e-commerce. New positions in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou account for nearly 60% in total, among which the demand for e-commerce operations and procurement talents accounts for the highest proportion.

Job postings are surging, but many Amazon operations are lingering on employment.

The dream of job-hopping and salary increase is shattered, Amazon operations are under siege

For smaller companies, experienced generalists are more popular, but in medium and large cross-border companies, the entire operation process is broken down into multiple clearly defined links, and operators are just screws on the assembly line, and experience is not important. Therefore, there is no shortage of job markets for inexperienced newcomers, but experienced operators are the most entangled in choosing jobs.

According to their feedback, the current recruitment volume has indeed increased, but the actual comprehensive salary has rarely increased, and may even be lower than the previous job:

——"Shenzhen, two years of fine products, this year's maximum is 8K."

——"In Shenzhen, three years of experience, asking for 8k but the offer was reduced to 7k, I was offered 6.5k and then 7k as a permanent employee."

——"The two-day weekend off is gone, and the salary is cut in half."

——"I am a humble grassroots operator. This year, I have to do the work of two positions by myself, and my commission has even decreased."

An operator who spent a long time to find a job told his colleagues not to quit if they can bear it. In fact, she received many interview invitations, but the quality of positions was uneven, and in the end there were not many offers to choose from. " I didn't feel anything last year when I didn't look for a job, but I found it difficult this year, and the salary is still low. " The new job has been settled, and the basic salary is higher than the previous one, but not as high as the comprehensive salary of the previous job, and the company has performance requirements during the probation period.

It is common to see base salaries going backwards this year. An operator in Guangdong lamented : "I studied e-commerce and graduated last year with a base salary of 7.4k as an operations assistant. After becoming a regular employee, I got 8.5k. This month, I left and found a new job and basically can only get 8k." The operators in Guangzhou felt this even more clearly. Someone said frankly that three years ago, the base salary was 4k including accommodation, but this year it was 3.5k, and even food and accommodation were not included.

It is not only Amazon platform operators who have seen a "salary cut". An operator with two years of experience at Walmart has been looking for a job for more than a month. "At first, there were three companies that offered 8K but I cut it down to 7.5K, but I didn't go. Now, there are only a few companies willing to pay 7.5K, and many companies are offering an outrageous 6K to 6.5K."

The situation of job-hopping after taking a pay cut is not only seen in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

An Amazon operator in Hangzhou said that this year, most supervisor positions have a base salary of only 10k, and manager positions have a base salary of 15k, and there is more supply than demand. Because the platform policies are becoming more stringent, the reliance on products is increasing, and the reliance on operations is low, coupled with shrinking profits, many companies have streamlined their staff. "Most of the sellers pouring in now are factories that have transformed into cross-border businesses, recruiting operators to open up new areas, and they are required to make money in a few months. Whether you are starting a business or working, it is difficult anyway."

In Beijing, an Amazon operator with two years of experience interviewed several companies in succession and found that only some small companies could offer 10K, while most companies offered 8K, and the base salary was reduced, and the commission was not high. After several rounds, his confidence was hit, and his expected salary during the interview began to be lower and lower.

In addition to salary, the interview scene is also full of problems. One operator complained that the interviewer asked how to kill the BSR red ocean product right away. If you have this skill, why do you still humbly apply for a job?

Nowadays, the most common thing in interviews is to do questions, which fill up a whole A4 paper. An operator participated in an interview and was asked to do 60 graphic reasoning questions. If she failed, she would not have the opportunity to interview. She took back her resume and left on the spot.

Why do you have to do a lot of test questions? In addition to understanding the level of operations, it may also be to test experience or "test sincerity." An industry leader said that doing questions is to see the compliance of the interviewee, and it will be difficult to manage people who don't even do the questions.

Under this comprehensive job-hunting atmosphere, some high-quality positions have become "conspicuous".

"Our company has development and operations together, and we get double commissions. After 3-4 months of employment, the basic salary commission for operations is 6-8k, and some of the best ones can get more than 15,000, even if they have no basic knowledge. There is someone to guide you through all the processes, and your salary depends on your level of effort. It will not be worse than the market average, and it is relatively easy to get over 10,000, but you also need to accumulate products." An operations staff revealed on social media. As expected, many operations staff left messages on the spot asking for internal referrals.

Some operators returned to Amazon's operations team after job hunting, but some left the team and changed careers. In their opinion, their performance has been mediocre for several years since they entered the industry, they have not entered a good company, encountered good products, or have never tasted the industry dividends. They are neither high nor low, and they will only be spinning in circles if they continue to work, so they choose to jump out of this industry and look for new opportunities.

ChatGPT is advancing rapidly, and the employment space for operators is being compressed

The continuous iteration of ChatGPT technology has visibly changed the job search and work content of cross-border operations.

Some Amazon operation positions have begun to require proficiency in using software such as ChatGPT. Some sellers said that adding ChatGPT to their resume can increase their salary by 2k.

A company in Shenzhen is recruiting ChatGPT operators with a salary of 12-20K. In terms of job responsibilities, in addition to understanding the operation and management of the Amazon platform, such as market analysis, product management, promotion planning, sales data analysis , etc., operators must also use AI technologies such as ChatGPT to enable the company's Amazon operations .

Specifically, we will work with the Amazon operations team to develop and optimize ChatGPT operations instructions, including but not limited to Amazon Listing copywriting optimization, advertising keyword optimization, AI image processing, AI product selection analysis, etc., to empower operations and improve store orders and performance . In addition, operations also need to pay attention to the development and application of AI tools such as Midjourney and Wenxin Yiyan .

Another cross-border company is recruiting " ChatGPT Optimizers ", who are required to be fresh graduates with a bachelor's degree or above, with a certain amount of AI knowledge , and those familiar with the cross-border e-commerce industry are preferred. The job responsibilities are to collaborate with the Amazon team to improve efficiency.

In addition to introducing specialized talents from outside, many cross-border companies have already improved their ChatGPT usage skills internally , with significant results.

Xiaobei, a big name in the industry , said: " Our company has already used ChatGPT efficiently, from independent website product titles and descriptions, to article descriptions, outlines, text, language polishing, tone reinforcement, all query statements, and what content to post on various social media, what kind of promotional copy to write for products in Facebook groups, how to write advertising copy, everything has been done. "

@外贸大队队长 also feels the same way. "ChatGPT is really amazing for writing copywriting now. We use ChatGPT to handle 90% of the copywriting for our website and LinkedIn. The results are much better than writing by ourselves, and the speed is also very fast."

Cross-border e-commerce listed companies and other leading sellers are paying more attention to the use of ChatGPT.

Lechuang shares said that AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) technology empowers cross-border e-commerce business and plays an important role in reducing costs and increasing efficiency, optimizing user experience, and expanding market opportunities . The application of AI in ergonomic equipment also has great potential. At present, the company is studying the connection of ChatGPT and Wenxin Yiyan to the smart screen to improve the intelligence level of the product and user experience. The API of the smart screen to connect to ChatGPT3.5 has passed the test, but it is not yet on the market.

Huakai Yibai introduced that the company is actively testing the related applications of ChatGPT. It has successfully explored feasible and online business scenarios including AI translation, copywriting and publication, and advertising keyword recommendations. It hopes that in the future it can expand its product library through technologies such as ChatGPT and improve the quantity and quality of product development.

The company has a technical team of more than 200 people, who can use ChatGPT to improve the operational efficiency of multiple business links more accurately and efficiently, leaving room for cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Yinzhijie has been exploring the field of artificial intelligence. In the field of artificial intelligence large models, the intelligent voice technology company (Bai Kelu) it invested in has realized the application of AI technology in the banking intelligent voice agent scenario. The company is also one of the first partners of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan and is actively promoting access to the "Wenxin Qianfan" service scenario on Baidu Cloud.

Anker Innovations ' R&D products mostly involve advanced technologies in the current consumer electronics field, such as AI voice, AI image recognition, and intelligent scenario interactive computing, and have achieved certain results in the fields of smart home and smart security. Currently, Anker has also tried to use AI efficiency-enhancing tools internally to improve the efficiency of programmers, customer service, designers and other positions.

Cross-border platforms are also improving efficiency through generation tools such as ChatGPT to increase transaction rates or improve after-sales service.

Focus Technology introduced that its subsidiary Made-in-China.com launched an AI assistant called "Michael" exclusively for foreign trade companies. Its main purpose is to help foreign trade personnel improve their daily work efficiency, so as to enhance the efficiency of attracting suppliers and the order conversion rate on the website.

In the marketing promotion scenario, "Michael" can achieve comprehensive output from market insights to marketing copywriting, write professional foreign trade development letters in multiple scenarios, intelligently rewrite product descriptions, and perform real-time SEO detection and optimization reminders; in the brand overseas expansion scenario, "Michael" can drive the automation of brand content production from functions such as corporate brand image building, creative planning of social media posts, and automatic blog generation.

Newegg, a subsidiary of Lianluo Interactive, has also been connected to the OpenAI API interface, and the relevant application functions of the e-commerce platform ChatGPT have been launched one after another. Artificial intelligence technology is currently being used to automatically review the product description content of new market products.

Analysts believe that for cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Jihong Holdings and Focus Technology, AIGC tools such as ChatGPT currently have language systems, interactive effects and greater compatibility with overseas businesses, and can help improve operational efficiency, refine operations and develop intelligent systems.

There is a strong demand for use in the industry. Following the launch of functions such as listing optimization and review analysis, industry service providers have also successively developed more intelligent application services.

An ERP software recently launched an AI tool for in-site messages. With this function, Amazon sellers can call ChatGPT within the software system to complete one-stop analysis and management of in-site messages such as "AI translation, AI analysis, AI reply, and AI optimized copywriting", analyze buyer needs and provide services to improve buyer satisfaction and reduce customer service costs.

Previously, a service software launched the ChatGPT plug-in, which has functions including automatic listing optimization, product review analysis, product QA analysis, etc. Now its intelligent review analysis function has been further upgraded, and the analysis can be completed in just 10 seconds, and the results are more accurate. It can conduct in-depth analysis on categories, understand professional terms, and trace the data source, so that relevant products and consumers' original voices can be viewed at any time. It has a significant effect in reducing the burden on operations.

In addition to ChatGPT, more AI applications have also been introduced into e-commerce operations, such as the AI ​​image tool Midjourney, the text content creation tool Jasper, the AI ​​work auxiliary tool Prompthero, and the ChatGPT alternative Claude.

It has to be said that they can already replace the work of some operation assistants, and senior operators can get twice the result with half the effort. In the future, it is very likely that two people can complete the work of three people, which squeezes the employment space of operators. To a certain extent, the future employment prospects of cross-border e-commerce operations need to take into account the degree of use of ChatGPT.

Amazon Operations