Sunshine Sensual Aesthetics Brand "Durex Candy": 90% of the employees are women. Shenzhen-based R&D, branding, and retail positions are available | Autumn Recruitment Report
"Workplace Bonus" (ID: ZhiChangHongLi)
In 2024, "finding a reliable job" and "recruiting reliable people" remain mutually troubling problems. We firmly believe that, aside from traditional large companies, there are still a large number of employer companies in the market that are in line with the dividends of the next era, waiting to be discovered. The potential of the Track, business logic, personnel situation... Mastery and insight into this information determine the vision of job seekers in choosing a company, as well as the quality and depth of the interview communication.
Anonymous company gossip may be helpful for job seekers to avoid risks - but those Career opportunities with scarcity and growth potential should not be missed because of an unsubstantiated comment on the Internet. In the spring and autumn seasons with a large volume of recruitment, 36Kr @Workplace Bonus uses a professional scoring model to screen a batch of "dividend companies" that are recruiting for on-site factory visits. Combining multiple perspectives from investors and headhunters, we ask questions to employers to bring you a "one-article understanding" of the recruitment reports of dividend companies.
"Female-friendly" is always the first ╱ 01
Sexual wellness is becoming more open, and people are no longer afraid to talk about "sex" ╱ 02
About "Daren Tang", you can also learn these ahead of other job seekers ╱ 03
Workplace Bonus has learned that the autumn recruitment of the sunny sexual wellness aesthetic brand "Daren Tang" is underway in 2024. This recruitment is mainly for social recruitment, and the recruitment positions involve three departments: Product, Brand, and Retail, with the work location based in Shenzhen. Among them, product design and research and development are the key recruitment positions, and due to the particularity of the products, female job seekers are preferred. Academic qualifications will not be overly referred to, and ability is the key.
For most people, the "sexual wellness industry" is an extremely niche and daunting Track. It seems that "sexual wellness" and "becoming more open" are inherently contradictory. Adhering to the value concept of "making sexual wellness more open and allowing every individual to face sex easily and naturally", Daren Tang was founded in 2019.
Currently, the company has high-end sexual wellness toys such as Doudouniao and Xiaohaibao, peripheral products such as sexual wellness lingerie and sexual wellness fragrances, as well as courses on sexual knowledge. The products have not only won many international design awards but have also been sold to countries in Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, Oceania, etc. In September this year, Daren Tang Made its debut on the Paris Fashion Week stage through a collaboration with the designer Zhou Rui (RUIZHOU)'s RUI-built brand.
Daren Tang is also a company where the proportion of female employees is as high as 90%. When talking about "female sexual wellness products", the employees do not feel ashamed or uncomfortable.
This is just as the company's values advocate - subverting the Stereotypical prejudice of the public towards the sexual wellness industry, redefining the female sexual wellness aesthetic, creating a sexual wellness brand that is de-sexualized and full of design sense, and committed to bringing a healthy and beautiful sexual wellness experience to every woman.
"Workplace Bonus" (ID: ZhiChangHongLi)
In the early days of the company's establishment five years ago, Daren Tang had only a few dozen employees; now, a team of 300 people has Taken shape. Two years ago, the company also had a Downturn state. Daren Tang CFO Annie told Workplace Bonus that due to the impact of the global public health event on revenue performance, the company carried out a wave of layoffs at the end of 2022.
This situation improved in 2023, and at the end of the same year, the company found the second growth curve of the business: opening offline stores. Since then, the company has continuously expanded its recruitment - which may also explain why the average length of service of the existing employees of Daren Tang is generally 1 - 2 years.
Although the sexual wellness products industry has the characteristics of "high profit, low return rate, and a large future market gap", due to the constraints of industry characteristics and cultural concepts, HRD Bai Yu still feels that recruitment is not easy. But she has always been proud of the company's culture: In this team with an average age of 26+ and a high proportion of female employees, there are no complicated interpersonal relationships, and there is no need to do things that you don't like to please the leaders.
"Here, if you don't know something, there will be a superior or colleague to teach you; and in the field you are good at, you can 'teach the boss how to do things' in minutes." A sense of belief flickers in her eyes, "We are doing a great cause. You will be with us, Promoting the openness of sexual wellness, so that more and more people can be free from repression, struggle, entanglement, and even harm. In terms of personal career, it can make money, grow, and show your abilities, and also has a positive value to society."
"Female-friendly" is always the first
During the seven hours in the interview room, I noticed that almost all the interviewees and staff who came in and out were women. What would it be like to work in a company where the proportion of female employees is as high as 90% and two-thirds of the senior management are women?
The Intuitive impression is that the walls here are white, the decoration exudes a clean Atmosphere, and the indoor style is simple yet elegant. There is no dedicated space for the administrative staff at the front desk. Instead, it is replaced by a brand video projected on the wall - from the perspective of aesthetics and space utilization, it is indeed a sexual wellness brand that "understands content".
"Why did you choose to interview for Daren Tang?"
Everyone has different reasons Around this topic; but there is one word that runs through all the conversations, and that is "female-friendly".
As a company whose products are targeted at female users, "female-friendly" has always been the principle that Daren Tang adheres to. For example, they once planned to launch a female private part cleaning liquid, and later conducted a large number of tests and consulted relevant experts - the unexpected conclusion drawn from the scientific level is "It is more recommended to wash with clean water". Therefore, even though a lot of upfront human and financial resources had been invested, Daren Tang decided to destroy the entire batch of products that had already been produced. "Because we believe this product is not female-friendly enough," Annie told Workplace Bonus, "No matter which category the company chooses, 'Female-friendly' will always be the first consideration, rather than data-driven."
Previously, Workplace Bonus learned that the appearance of Daren Tang's products has already become one of the factors for the brand to stand out. In addition to being more in line with the female aesthetic in terms of color and shape, choosing fresh and natural colors such as pink, light yellow, and sky blue, some products can also be directly placed on the desktop or used as decorations to reduce the psychological threshold of users.
However, product manager Jia Yi explained to us that when the Daren Tang team designs products, the most concerned is actually safety.
As a newcomer to the product team of Daren Tang who joined in June this year, Jia Yi's first product to be launched soon is lubricant. "When I first started researching and developing lubricant products, I found that a lot of the information on the Internet is wrong." In order to ensure the scientificity and safety of this personal debut product, Jia Yi read a large number of papers and scientific literature in the early stage of research and development. "None of the introductions of the existing products on the market can impress me. So I have to find the most scientific and female-friendly material to make the product to the extreme."
When Jia Yi first communicated with the factory, the other party was also very puzzled why she did not directly adopt the common formulas and component ratios in the industry. "The testing fee for the product is very expensive, several tens of thousands at a time, and a product usually needs to be tested 4 - 5 times. But the company leaders still strongly support me to do the safety tests."
Before joining Daren Tang as an employee, Jia Yi was already a user who had a good impression of the company's brand. The reason that ultimately attracted and prompted her to join is that "the company insists on being user-oriented". She said: "Previously, when I saw the job descriptions of product manager positions in some consumer goods companies, a large part of the text talked about packaging design, market analysis, etc. In contrast, Daren Tang's large paragraphs of text are all Around user needs."
In addition to insisting on launching "female-friendly" products, actively participating in public welfare activities related to women is also something that Daren Tang has been doing in recent years. "Last year, we shot a public welfare short film for breast cancer patients and donated materials, and we will continue to do so this year," Annie added. In the future, the company will still adhere to the "female-friendly" values and firmly do the right thing.
Internally in the company, "female-friendly" is also implemented. "The company has a very sufficient budget for employees' annual Physical examination, and on every Women's Day, Mother's Day, etc., gifts will be carefully prepared, and free yoga classes will be provided every Tuesday and Thursday evening."
Brand manager A Fei told Workplace Bonus that compared to the company she was in before, the colleagues at Daren Tang are very casual, there is no need to deliberately dress up, there is almost no appearance anxiety, and there will be no phenomenon of "being blindly instructed by a group of male executives who do not understand female products on the plan". The male colleagues in the company also respect women very much, and there is no "male gaze", "mockery", or "teasing" here.
According to the user thanks and feedback received by Daren Tang, after joining the company, A Fei also realized: It turns out that women who have a demand for sexual wellness products are not only limited to young people in first-tier cities with avant-garde ideas. "We also saw divorced single mothers, or women in family relationships with children, and there are many in their 30s and 40s." This also broke her previous Stereotypical impression.
In Annie's view, the company's business has also inspired the awakening of the female consciousness of many employees. "Many people will feel ashamed to use sexual wellness products - but this is a normal physiological need of women, and we hope to make women's needs be better seen and solved."
"Workplace Bonus" (ID: ZhiChangHongLi)
Sexual wellness is becoming more open, and people are no longer afraid to talk about "sex"
Exploring how to promote the openness of sexual wellness is the long-term vision and background of Daren Tang.
From the appearance of the products, Daren Tang is not only different from the explicit designs commonly seen in the industry, nor does it show sexual wellness in a teasing or joking way - but pays more attention to the current situation and feelings of women in social life, choosing a fresh and cute style, with the expression focusing on the female perspective, emphasizing sexual consciousness and psychology.
As a brand manager, A Fei is mainly responsible for the operation of the online official account on a daily basis, "For example, making popular science push notifications to let more women understand their own needs and solve them more healthily and scientifically. Or publishing some content related to new product launches and promotions." Currently, Daren Tang has built online communication platforms mainly on Xiaohongshu, WeChat, and Weibo to promote "sexual wellness" to be more sunny and open from the content marketing level.
In the experience of Yin Qian, the offline retail operation manager, the landing and realization of the strategy of "opening offline stores" is the best milestone for the company to promote the openness of sexual wellness.
Due to the particularity of the business, when Daren Tang makes attempts such as placing large-screen advertisements offline and live-streaming online, it will face resistance that other categories have not encountered. Especially in the case of no landing cases (even no industry precedents), more efforts are needed from the team to achieve it. And for a brand that started from online e-commerce, opening offline stores is also beyond its familiar ability range.
The first case is very important. As long as the first case is won, the subsequent partners will be more willing to try something new. It is worth celebrating that Daren Tang's first offline store opened in Yifangcheng, Shenzhen in July last year, and then it also explored and tried forms such as "pop-up stores". Once, the cooperative shopping mall arranged the store location of Daren Tang at the corner of the basement floor, "giving a feeling of being shady". Fortunately, with the unremitting communication and efforts of the colleagues, the shopping mall finally agreed to change it to an open-air location on the first floor.
Now, Daren Tang has opened 16 stores in 12 cities including Shenzhen, Nanjing, and Chongqing. Yin Qian disclosed to Workplace Bonus that the company will open 2 - 3 stores in December this year, and it is expected that the number of stores will reach 50 - 60 in 2025.
The decoration and layout of the stores also need to be carefully considered. Yin Qian previously worked for a large fashion clothing brand for 7 years, from sales assistant, front-end operation, to being responsible for coordination and management at the headquarters, with rich experience in the retail management closed loop - the leader who recruited her saw this point and hoped that she could bring mature experience to the offline store expansion of Daren Tang.
"For example, the decoration style of the store is soft and bright, more like the decoration of a lingerie brand; the placement of the goods can allow customers to look at them with their backs to the store door - these small details can reduce the psychological pressure of customers when shopping in the store. In addition, the store assistants are all women, and the resistance and precaution of consumers will also be much smaller."
However, with the popularity of the product appearance, many similar products that imitate the design of Daren Tang have appeared in the industry. Facing this kind of competition, Annie believes that "the core of the brand lies in values, and the core of Daren Tang is difficult to be copied".
"Perhaps we have indeed promoted and enhanced the product design level of the sexual wellness industry?" She joked. For this female executive of the company who comes from a well-known auditing firm, the sense of anxiety comes more from the self-requirement as an innovator and explorer. "Becoming more open is only the first step, and offline expansion is the second curve. The further path of Daren Tang in the future is a question that the company is currently thinking about."
About "Daren Tang", you can also learn these ahead of other job seekers
● Workplace Bonus Factory Visit to "Daren Tang"
