Behind the boom in popularity of anchor and other jobs, how do platforms and institutions help new youth groups find employment?

It is the annual recruitment season again, and anchor positions have become popular again. However, what is different from the past is that more and more college talents are joining the short video live broadcast industry. So how do platforms and institutions help the new youth group find employment? Let's take a look.

During the "golden March and silver April" recruitment season, anchor positions jumped to the top 5 of a recruitment website's spring recruitment list. This is not the first time that anchor positions have become popular, but it once again reflects the short video live broadcast industry's desire for college talents.

At the same time, more and more college graduates choose to enter the short video live broadcast industry, working as anchors, short video experts or operations.

There is a high degree of match between industry demand and talent employment, which also draws attention to the role played by short video industry institutions and platforms in recruiting university talents and supporting the growth of new youth groups.

On March 3, Xinbochang released the "Employment Survey Report of New Youth Groups in Short Video Live Broadcasting Organizations", which mentioned the supply and demand matching of both parties. At the same time, judging from various data and cases, as well as the actions of the platform, this supply and demand matching relationship is deepening.

01 During the spring recruitment period, anchor/operation positions became popular

As one of the 10.67 million college graduates in 2022, Xiaodu truly understands the pressure of employment.

"The recruitment software shows that I have contacted 1,900 positions and submitted 53 resumes." Xiaodu said that she has been looking for a job since graduation, but most of her resumes have been ignored. Even when entering the interview stage, Xiaodu has to go through multiple group interviews with 6-10 people, or wait for interviews with more than a dozen people for the same position. After going through the lengthy process, only a few can be hired in the end.

This made Xiaodu feel deeply frustrated, and made her understand what "the employment problem of college students is serious" means. More importantly, the expenses of renting a house, eating, and commuting also gave Xiaodu a headache as she had no source of income.

However, Xiaodu discovered that unlike his own applications for numerous jobs, since he registered for the recruitment software, he has received almost constant invitations for relevant positions in live streaming organizations.

Especially since the spring recruitment began, more and more live short video companies have sent invitations, and the frequency has also increased. However, Xiaodu felt that he was not a related major and did not understand the industry. He was worried about being cheated, so he always took the attitude of reading but not replying.

Later, after seeing some reports about college graduates doing live streaming and short videos, Xiaodu gained a certain understanding of the live streaming and short video industry and gradually became interested in this industry.

"Later, I thought I should give it a try, and then I came to this company." After weighing the pros and cons, Xiaodu chose a company that was closer to where he lived.

"The company is located in a park. There is an honor wall at the entrance, which displays many anchors." Xiaodu recalled the situation at that time. In addition to being impressed by the company's environment, he also remembered several operators who interviewed him. "They analyzed the pros and cons of the anchor position for me. In addition to the relatively flexible working hours, I can meet more people and get more opportunities. And as long as I work hard, I can definitely make money."

This is indeed the case. After joining the company in February this year, Xiaodu's initial base salary was 5,000 yuan per month. With performance bonuses and commissions, she received a salary that "all her classmates envied" in just one month.

When Xiaodu was discussing job hunting with his classmates, several students who participated in the spring recruitment said that there were also many anchors and operations/planning and other related positions at the spring recruitment site.

The "Golden March and Silver April" spring recruitment season is when college students flock to find jobs, and the short video live streaming industry, which has a huge demand for talent, also attaches great importance to this.

As early as 2022, Elephant News reported that at the offline spring recruitment site in Zhengzhou, anchor positions were very popular and companies flocked to find anchors. Among them, there were guilds recruiting entertainment anchors, and there were also institutions recruiting e-commerce anchors.

Entering 2023, anchor positions continued to be crowded during the spring recruitment period, which gave Xiaodu, who had graduated half a year ago, a job opportunity. In the industry, there are many people with similar experiences to Xiaodu.

The president of the Kuaishou live broadcast guild Shuguangxianyi told Xinbochang that among the new anchors they applied for in 2023, more than 200 were college students who were about to graduate or had just graduated.

02 Platforms and institutions work hard to promote employment

In the short video live broadcast industry, it has long been a common phenomenon to hire "new youth groups" aged 20-30 with college (vocational) education or above. Not only has anchor become a popular position for a large number of college students to apply for during the spring recruitment season, but operations and editing and directing positions are also popular.

On March 3, Xinbochang released the "Employment Situation Survey Report on New Youth Groups in Short Video Live Streaming Institutions" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which showed that the survey subjects covered 20 provinces and cities across the country and more than 10,000 employed people.

The report shows that when new youth apply for jobs in the short video live streaming industry, the most interviewed positions are operations/planning/directing, followed by anchors/talents. The same is true for specific employment situations, with operations/planning/directing ranking first and anchors/talents ranking second, and the former's employment rate is 10% higher than the latter.

On the one hand, in the short video live streaming industry, positions such as anchors and operations basically have no entry barriers and provide relatively considerable basic salaries; on the other hand, the rapid development of the short video live streaming industry has also allowed more and more young people to see the career potential therein, and therefore they maintain a medium to high demand for such positions all year round.

Because of this, a new group of young people with a population of tens of millions and increasing employment pressure have been pouring into the short video live broadcast industry in recent years. According to relevant data, the shortage of practitioners in the short video and live broadcast e-commerce fields will increase from 1.81 million in 2021 to 5.74 million in 2023, with a growth rate of 217.1%.

In order to better match the employment needs of the new youth group and absorb more new forces for the industry, short video + live broadcast platforms represented by Kuaishou acted quickly, and jointly provided more jobs and opportunities with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Among them, Kuaishou live broadcast guilds have also increased their efforts to absorb the new youth group. Whether it is the type of job or salary, they have shown full sincerity.

"Whether it is the anchor or other positions, we hope to have more fresh blood injected into our guild." said the guild leader of Eleven.

As a new guild that has developed rapidly in Kuaishou Live in 2022, the guild of Shiyi is in a critical stage of consolidating its business foundation and expansion, and there is a large gap in talent. The relevant person in charge has therefore focused on the new youth group and believes that "the addition of these outstanding talents" can bring confidence and guarantee to the guild's upward development.

In addition to Eleven's guild, other entertainment guilds such as Yujia Entertainment and Zhongcheng Media are also stepping up their efforts to recruit new youth groups.

Among them, Yujia Entertainment has been recruiting college students since 2019. Their top anchor Yin Huohuo was signed after graduating from college. Yin Huohuo signed the contract in 2021, and in 2022, she was included in the list of members of the music anchor growth reality show "Sounds Like Summer Flowers" produced by Kuaishou.

In 2020, Zhongcheng Media increased its recruitment efforts for the new youth group and provided them with more than ten positions including operations planning, photography and editing, procurement, personnel, finance, and directing, increasing employment opportunities for the new youth group.

In addition to solving employment problems and obtaining relatively attractive salaries, the new young people who are pouring into the short video live streaming industry also hope to realize their self-worth.

The report mentioned that the main reason why young people choose to work in institutions is "good development prospects", accounting for 54.44%. "Good development prospects" not only means that the industry has considerable growth space and future development, but also helps many young people realize their dreams and gain self-growth through short videos and live broadcasts.

For example, Zhang Xiaohu, the president of a Taekwondo club at a university in Liaoning, usually works part-time as a Taekwondo training teacher. Because offline venues were shut down due to the epidemic, he chose to teach children online through live broadcasts. He said, "Although it cannot completely compare to the effect of face-to-face classes in the gym, many children like it, and I have also accumulated experience in online live broadcasts."

Many young people have realized their dreams and grown up through the short video industry. For example, Lin Guoer, who has loved engineering since childhood, did not pursue her major because of her gender. But short videos gave her the opportunity to do what she likes, support herself and gain recognition.

Diedie, the host who has been learning pipa since childhood, found a job smoothly after graduating from a professional college. However, her expectations for her job are not just a salary. Since she was a pipa player, she has a sense of mission to spread the music, and live streaming finally gave her the opportunity to realize it.

"This industry has the opportunity to soar to the sky, but also the guarantee of hard work and reward." When talking about the new youth group realizing their value with the help of the industry, Hao Da, the guild leader of Zhongcheng Media, expressed his opinion, "The anchor industry is very different from a few years ago. Resources are not particularly concentrated on the rare top anchors. New anchors who are down-to-earth and serious about live broadcasting can also make achievements in this industry."

03 Further promote "supply and demand matching"

The report shows that among the 90 valid sample institutions, in 44 institutions, the proportion of young people in the total employees of the company is 50% (inclusive) or less.

Among the other 46 institutions where the proportion of new youth groups exceeds 50%, 12 of them have a proportion of 91%-100%. In other words, 13.33% of the short video live broadcast institutions have employees who are almost all new youth groups.

It can be seen that the large-scale and capable new youth group waiting for employment has reached a supply-demand match with the short video live broadcast industry. At the same time, the new youth group has also realized their self-worth.

Today, institutions and even platforms within the industry are stepping up their efforts to promote the matching of supply and demand between the two sides. For example, in the report, nearly 85% of institutions stated that they would increase the recruitment of new youth groups in the future.

On the platform side, Kuaishou Live announced the launch of the "Super New Generation" anchor incentive plan at the end of February, providing cash and traffic to students aged 18 and above or young people who have graduated within two years, and linking up with live broadcast guilds and other professional industry organizations to help them find employment through short videos + live broadcasts.

Kuaishou Live will continue to provide cash, traffic and other resources throughout 2023, and launch systematic anchor training and growth courses. It will work with guilds and other upstream and downstream live streaming industry organizations to continue to support college students and other young people in finding employment.

On the one hand, resources such as cash and traffic have lowered the entry threshold for new young people who want to become independent talents and anchors; on the other hand, systematic anchor training and growth courses can also provide more help to new young people.

In fact, in addition to helping young people find jobs through support policies and deepening the supply and demand match between them and the industry, Kuaishou Live's support for high-quality content on the platform has also attracted many young people.

Earlier, Kuaishou Live launched a policy to support high-quality content, which divided the four major categories of music, dance, appearance, and traditional talents into 11 categories, and established "super-quality content anchors" or "high-quality content anchors" to attract new young anchors with content and talents to join. At the same time, this also encouraged the guild to tap high-quality talents in this area, directly and indirectly helping the employment and growth of the new youth group.

In addition, Kuaishou Live’s incentives for folk and intangible cultural heritage content have also promoted the employment and growth of young people in related professions.

The report shows that the situation of anchor positions for the new youth group in institutions is that talent anchors account for 56.14%, e-commerce anchors account for 31.58%, and intangible cultural heritage anchors account for 3.51%, ranking fourth.

In addition, Kuaishou, which has been expanding the boundaries of live streaming in the past 1-2 years, has also provided a platform and opportunity for growth for practitioners in more industries. For example, in the real estate sector, Kuaishou live streaming has facilitated the further growth of many real estate agents.

The report mentioned that Xiaoying, the anchor, became a real estate agent after graduation. With years of experience and professional knowledge, she began to publish short video content and live broadcast on Kuaishou. Through short video live broadcast, she has provided consultation to consumers more than 2,600 times, sold 356 houses, and finally achieved a counterattack from a real estate agent to a real estate person with the help of live broadcast, and gained self-growth.

At the same time, with Kuaishou Live's exploration in the recruitment field, more practical recruitment tools and recruitment channels based on hundreds of millions of daily active users are also helping more and more job seekers find jobs faster.

According to the latest data from CNNIC, the number of short video users in my country has exceeded 1 billion, with a user utilization rate of 94.8%. Such a large number of users will stimulate a larger content consumption market, which will require more high-quality talents.

With the continuous promotion of industry platforms represented by Kuaishou, and the increasing favor of new youth groups by more and more industry organizations, the supply and demand matching relationship between new youth groups and the short video live broadcast industry is further deepening. In the future, both parties will promote the realization of personal value, the development of organizations and platforms, and jointly contribute to the prosperity of the entire industry in the process of integration.

Author: Aligu

Source: New Broadcasting Company (ID: New_bc), a value deconstructor of culture and entertainment, new consumption, and commercial technology.