APTnovel Chapter 496 Anti-Poaching
Chapter 496 Anti-Poaching
After stabilizing the defensive position, Lu Ran began to think about counterattacks.
Tencent can poach talent, and so can TUTU.
The quality of their employees speaks for itself. Tencent's recruitment standards have always been among the highest in the industry, and even entry-level employees are selected through multiple rounds of screening.
There are quite a few people who got to that position based solely on their abilities, without relying on connections or background.
Lu Ran arranged to have a small meeting with Chen Mo and Zhou Mingzhe the next morning.
He arrived earlier than usual. When he got to the company, there were already several early-arriving colleagues picking out things in the snack area, holding soy milk and steamed buns in their hands and chewing on Mimi shrimp chips in their mouths, a rather unique combination.
When Chen Mo arrived, he was carrying a cup of coffee. After sitting down, he asked the first question, "Are you going to dig up dirt from me?"
"Yes. Tencent can poach us, and we can poach them too. We can't touch their middle and upper management, but what about their lower-level employees? Whether they're ordinary staff or key project members, as long as they have the ability, we can poach them and use them."
Chen Mo didn't respond immediately. He held his coffee cup for a moment, then said, "You need to think about where to put them after you recruit them. TUTU's business is quite large now, but its core structure is already very stable. If newcomers don't have suitable positions and clear goals, they can easily become 'being nurtured' for now. Nurturing them for too long will cause problems."
Lu Ran nodded: "So this recruitment drive isn't just about revenge. It's preparation for our upcoming expansion. We're getting 'Honor of Kings' and 'PUBG' approved, plus we'll be increasing our external collaborations for the AI engine. We need manpower to handle the coordination and operations. Tencent's mid-level management is the most suitable candidate—experienced, capable, with experience at large companies but whose career advancement is blocked. They're dissatisfied with the current situation, understand TUTU, and they'll be ready to contribute immediately without much training."
Zhou Mingzhe chimed in, "Moreover, Tencent's middle management group has a unique characteristic: their upward mobility is truly blocked. Above them are veterans who built the company from the founding team, their positions firmly held, and there aren't enough openings for newcomers. Capable people, after a while, want to leave, but the companies they can join are either too small to accommodate them or their career paths aren't suitable. TUTU is currently one of the most suitable options in China. We're large enough, growing fast enough, and there are genuine vacancies in core positions. For them, it's an opportunity; for us, it's a chance to fill a gap."
Lu Ran looked at Chen Mo: "You used to work at Tencent, so you understand this group quite well. What do you think would be the best way for us to approach each other?"
Chen Mo put down his coffee cup, thought for a moment, and then spoke: "We can't contact them directly through public channels; that would be too obvious, and they'd report us immediately. We can't completely bypass headhunters either; that's too random. The safest way is to use a third-party headhunting firm for targeted recruitment. We'll have the headhunters contact mid-level managers at Tencent who are looking to switch jobs, discuss their intentions first, and then submit their names. We won't reveal TUTU's identity in the first round; we'll only reveal our hand after both sides have expressed a basic level of interest."
"What about the budget?" Zhou Mingzhe asked.
"According to industry practice, mid-level managers typically see salary increases of 30% to 50% when they switch jobs. The people we need to recruit need to offer even higher increases to offset the risk costs of their departure from Tencent. I suggest offering double the standard salary, but not in cash, but in conjunction with stock options and project bonuses. This way, we won't drive up personnel costs too much at once, and we can also keep them more closely tied to TUTU."
After listening, Lu Ran said, "Then let's go in this direction. You'll be in charge of liaising with headhunting firms, clearly outlining the requirements, and prioritizing recruiting project leaders in technical roles and senior managers in product roles. These are the two areas we need most. We also need a head of planning; if there are any suitable candidates, we can contact them."
Chen Mo replied with an "okay," then finished his coffee, stood up, and left.
Over the next two weeks, TUTU contacted nearly twenty mid-level employees at Tencent through a headhunting firm.
The contact method is very standard. The headhunter first contacts the other party anonymously to talk about the other party's current situation and intentions. If the other party expresses the intention to change jobs, the headhunter will gradually reveal the basic situation and salary range of TUTU.
The entire process does not involve any sensitive information, does not involve any operations that might make things difficult for the other party, and is carried out entirely through legitimate channels.
The feedback was more positive than expected.
Of the twenty people, thirteen expressed a clear interest in learning more, while seven were not interested in taking any action for the time being but were willing to stay in touch.
Of the thirteen interested people, eight were in technical positions, three in product positions, and two in operations positions.
These eight people are distributed across different business lines at Tencent. Some work on game engines, some on backend architecture, some on data platforms, and others on frontend and client-side development.
Each of them has an impressive resume, having spent an average of four to five years at Tencent, experiencing the entire project cycle from requirements review to code implementation to deployment and maintenance.
During the second round of contact, the headhunter revealed TUTU's identity. None of the thirteen interested people dropped out; in fact, several people became noticeably more proactive.
One of the technical team leaders, who had been developing game engines for six years, said something that was relayed by a headhunter: "I've wanted to go to TUTU for a long time, but I don't know if they hire someone like me."
Another architect working on a data platform said, "Tencent's projects are too large; I can only manage a small part of them in my entire career. TUTU, although smaller in scale, has a higher degree of project completeness, and I can follow it from beginning to end. I want to work on complete projects."
The third round is the interview.
Lu Ran had Zhao Yiming personally interview the eight technical staff members, while Lao Wang interviewed three of the more senior ones.
The two interviewers gave surprisingly consistent feedback—these candidates were more skilled than they had expected. It wasn't the kind of inflated accolades from "having worked at a big company," but genuine, hard-earned ability.
The code is clean, the design is clear, and complex problems can be quickly broken down into feasible solutions. Communication skills are also excellent.
In the end, Lu Ran decided to take them all.
We offered jobs to all eleven people, including eight technical positions and three product operations positions.
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