VCs have started poaching people from Doubao.

"I've been extremely busy lately."

Headhunter Cole told me that before the Spring Festival, she had several client requirements in hand. All of them hoped to recruit people as soon as possible, and each was more urgent than the last. For example, Institution A has opened new business lines in its Beijing and Shanghai offices and is in urgent need of analysts, hoping they can start work in February. And Institution B, in order to handle the year - end work, even restarted campus recruitment after many years to "scoop up" a group of outstanding fresh graduates.

"Now, in order to recruit people to work, institutions are ready to relax the interview standards. I always remind candidates that this is a good time to job - hop," Cole said.

For her, who has been in the primary market for many years, such a intensive recruitment rhythm is a long - awaited signal. Cole also told me that currently she still has at least a dozen recruitment requirements from institutions that will be launched soon. Among them are dual - currency and established VCs, as well as state - owned and industrial capitals.

Cole has a hunch that 2026 might reproduce the "grand occasion" of 2021 and become an excellent window period for job - hopping in the primary market.

This is not just Cole's feeling. Many VC/PE headhunters seem to have reached a consensus on this. After communicating, I found that what is more worthy of attention than the recovery in quantity is the reconstruction of the institutions' candidate selection criteria.

Now, almost all positions are focused on the currently most popular AI and hard - tech fields. A background in science and engineering plus industrial experience has become a hard requirement for VC recruitment. Some institutions even clearly require to recruit people specifically from the product lines and laboratories of Doubao, DeepSeek, and the "Six Big Model Tigers". For such candidates, institutions are also quite generous in terms of salary. I heard an exaggerated example where an institution recruiting an AI investor offered a basic monthly salary of 200,000 yuan.

It can be seen that VCs/PEs are not only constantly expanding their boundaries in investment strategies and product types, but also increasing their efforts in terms of "talent".

The Recruitment Peak is Here

Many headhunters said that the current wave of recruitment enthusiasm in the primary market did not suddenly erupt, but has been heating up since the beginning of 2025.

Not long ago, Jessica sorted out her performance in the past year. As a result, she found that all the figures had nearly doubled compared with 2024. She even completed the goals set at the beginning of the year several months ahead of schedule, and the year - end data was even better than expected. She said bluntly, "I haven't had such good performance for several years." Judging from the current recruitment requirements, the competition for talent in 2026 will only be more intense.

Jessica said that the current recruitment enthusiasm is mainly concentrated in institutions that had relatively smooth fundraising in the past. Among them, the number of RMB - denominated positions is significantly more than that of US - dollar - denominated positions. In terms of sectors, most positions are in artificial intelligence and hard - tech, and at the same time, the number of consumer investment positions has also increased significantly month - on - month. Many leading institutions have added consumer investor positions.

It is also worth mentioning that investment positions account for nearly 90%.

To some extent, the recruitment requirements of institutions are often a mirror of the market rhythm. For example, around 2021, when government - guided funds entered the market and became the main source of funds in the fundraising market, there was a situation where institutions collectively "poached" RMB IRs.

By around 2024, the pace of the equity investment market slowed down. Most funds were in the exit and liquidation period, and the main exit channel for VCs/PEs, IPO, was repeatedly blocked. Against this background, exit became the main theme in the primary market. Therefore, most recruitment requirements were concentrated in post - investment management positions. Some institutions even offered a monthly salary of 100,000 yuan and specifically required candidates with "merger and acquisition experience".

Since 2025, the small recruitment peak that erupted at the beginning of 2026 has changed the direction again - front - office investment positions are becoming the absolute center of this recovery.

In fact, you can easily find this by looking at recruitment websites. According to incomplete statistics, Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Zhongke Chuangxing, Vertex Ventures, etc. have recently released relevant recruitment information, among which "pre - investment" positions account for a large proportion.

In Allen's view, this change is the result of multiple factors.

Firstly, the secondary market is unblocked, and the exit channel is restarted. The vitality of the primary market ultimately depends on the clarity of "exit". In 2025, the opening of the Hong Kong stock market and the restoration of the A - share rhythm directly boosted the willingness of investment institutions to recruit talents. The listing performance of star projects such as the "Four GPU Tigers", Zhipu, and MiniMax at the end of the year pushed the sentiment to another level. When the money starts to flow, people naturally need to keep up.

Secondly, the evolution and adjustment of the LP structure. In the past few years, US - dollar LPs shrank, and government - guided funds came to the forefront. However, there were inevitable pains in the initial stage of the transition. Constraints such as risk control, compliance, and investment return requirements made many RMB funds' investment rhythms more conservative. But since 2025, "patient capital" has been repeatedly emphasized from the central to local levels, and the policy level is also trying to loosen the restrictions on market - based operations. At the same time, some US - dollar funds show signs of returning. The stability of the fundraising side provides a foundation for the activity of the investment side.

Finally, it is the "investment certainty" brought by AI and hard - tech. Allen mentioned that in 2025, the emergence of startups such as DeepSeek and Unitree made the primary market see the investment certainty in fields such as AI and hard - tech. In the past, the investment themes of institutions revolved around consumption and the Internet, with the core being to identify business model innovation and user growth potential. Now, they focus more on technological innovation.

The shift in the investment paradigm has triggered a reshuffle of the institutions' talent structure. Talents related to AI and hard - tech are becoming the new "hard currency" in the market.

Recruit from Doubao and DeepSeek

"Previously, the standard portrait of an investor was someone from Tsinghua School of Economics and Management or Peking University Guanghua School of Management, majoring in finance or business, and directly entering a VC after graduation. But today, such a background is no longer sufficient," Allen said.

Allen mentioned that in the past, investors looked at business models. Now, they look at technical routes, product iterations, and the technical background of the team. "Those who don't understand the industry can't even have a proper conversation."

Against this background, the employment standards of investment institutions are being rewritten. A background in science and engineering has become a hard requirement. A compound background of majoring in computer science, electronic engineering, or electromechanics at the undergraduate level and then studying finance at the master's level is the "standard configuration". Of course, academic qualifications are just the stepping - stone. Some leading institutions also require candidates to have industrial experience or relevant entrepreneurial experience.

Allen said that many institutional clients have put forward requirements to conduct research in companies such as DeepSeek, Doubao, Qianwen, and the "Six Big Model Tigers" and recruit AI product managers to transform into investment positions.

In his view, in addition to having a basic judgment on technology and being able to communicate with entrepreneurs on the same frequency, such talents also have an important natural advantage - their alumni and former colleagues network is an important source of projects. "The entrepreneurs he is looking for today might be his classmates or seniors."

It is worth mentioning that, different from the past preference for "mature investors" with successful project exit experience, in this round of recruitment, institutions show more interest in young people who have graduated for two or three years or three to five years, have industrial experience, and have entrepreneurial ideas.

"Now, both AI and hard - tech investments are still in the 'non - consensus' stage, and there is no established successful path to follow. This means that your past investment experience may not be an advantage today, and it may even become a shackle. Therefore, current institutions are more willing to pay the cost to cultivate a new generation of investment forces whose investment thinking is not 'fixed' from scratch," Allen said.

Cole has a similar feeling to Allen and mentioned that institutions are also more willing to offer high salaries to such talents. The monthly salary for junior - level positions can usually reach 50,000 - 80,000 yuan. If the candidate is excellent and the negotiation goes well, an annual salary of one million yuan is not difficult to achieve.

There is even an exaggerated case circulating in the market: an institution recruiting an AI investor offered a base monthly salary as high as 200,000 yuan, and this does not include the more substantial bonus and carry.

"VC/PE Recruitment Can't Be as Crazy as in the Industry"

However, on the other hand, compared with the annual salaries of millions of yuan in large companies and AI star startups, VCs/PEs do not have an absolute advantage in terms of salary numbers.

This is also closely related to the industry's attributes. The primary market has never been a talent - intensive industry. Although institutions are collectively increasing recruitment, on average, the number of headcounts (HC) for each institution is very limited. In essence, this is still a buyer - dominated market.

"In fact, most candidates who are willing to join VCs from the industry are aiming to invest in the next Xiaohongshu or ByteDance. If they only care about aligning with their current salary in the short term, they may not get an offer," Allen said. There is more of a two - way selection based on long - term career expectations between institutions and candidates.

In addition, Allen admitted that it is difficult for the primary market to see the situation of "each person having a dozen offers" like in the industrial sector.

"The screening logic of the industry and investment is completely different," Allen explained. "Due to the extreme specialization in large companies, they value the academic and professional in - depth ability of AI talents more. Investment institutions need people who understand technology, have a macro perspective, business intuition, and even the ability to judge people. People who can meet these conditions at the same time are extremely rare."

This also brings the most difficult contradiction in this recovery. Headhunter Jessica said bluntly, "Now that there are more projects, the most urgent problem is the lack of people to do the work. In the past few years when the market was sluggish, institutions didn't recruit many new people. Even if they did, there might not be decent projects for them to practice. The mobility of a small number of juniors who have solid experience in active institutions is extremely low."

Thus, a paradox emerges: the people that institutions most want to recruit are precisely the most difficult to recruit.

Those "perfect candidates" who are young, understand technology, have industrial experience, and can quickly improve their business knowledge are becoming a scarce resource that the entire industry is competing for. How to tap potential from the existing talent pool and how to reassemble the ability structure of cross - border talents will be a long - term proposition left to institutions by this wave of recruitment enthusiasm.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China Venture Capital", author: Wang Manhua. Republished by 36Kr with permission.