New Changes in Major Banks' Autumn Recruitment: This Type of Position Has Become Highly Sought-After

On October 8, Zhang Ming sent his resume to the autumn campus recruitment application email addresses of two large state-owned banks respectively.

As a senior student majoring in finance at a Project 985 university, he is looking forward to successfully joining one of the banks to start his first job in life.

Recently, he learned from three senior schoolmates who work in banks that the number of autumn recruitment positions at the Big Four banks this year is lower than last year, making the entry competition for fresh graduates more intense.

Statistics by the reporter show that the total number of 2027 campus recruitment positions of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China is about 64,100, which is lower than 77,600 in 2025 and 71,500 in 2026 respectively.

As a business supervisor in the HR (Human Resources) department of a large state-owned bank, Zhao Qian told reporters that on the one hand, large banks are cutting the number of autumn recruitment positions, because repetitive jobs such as customer service, counter work and management support are being continuously replaced by AI (Artificial Intelligence); on the other hand, in recent years, the demand of large banks for positions in fintech R&D, risk control compliance, marketing and other fields has continued to rise.

Earlier this year, the senior management of the bank where Zhao Qian works emphasized that the value of front-line marketing staff should be re-examined — although AI makes financial services more efficient and convenient, a large number of customers still hope to obtain personalized financial service experience through face-to-face communication.

Therefore, the bank where Zhao Qian works has arranged more than 3,000 marketing-related positions in the autumn recruitment, an increase of more than 10% compared with last year's autumn recruitment. Driven by the digital and intelligent transformation, the number of technology R&D positions in this bank has increased by more than 400 compared with last year's autumn recruitment, covering directions such as AI modeling, data governance and cutting-edge AI technology application.

Tian Lihui, a professor of finance at Nankai University, believes that currently banks mainly need young people who can combine AI technology with banking business, who drive banks into a new development stage of "AI improves efficiency, manpower creates profits", which is another profound change brought by the AI wave to the banking industry.

Fewer repetitive job positions

Zhang Jian is the president of a branch in East China of a large state-owned bank.

Since September, he has successively received more than 10 resumes of fresh graduates from relatives and friends, hoping that he could offer some help. Some relatives and friends said that as long as they can get into the bank, the fresh graduates are willing to work at the counter.

Zhang Jian said that he is afraid that he "cannot help" with this favor, because in recent years the bank he works for has been continuously reducing the number of counter staff.

Recently, the head of the branch's HR department asked Zhang Jian if he could help arrange two counter employees to transfer to the post of corporate account manager.

Zhang Jian said that the continuous reduction in the number of counter employees is mainly due to the popularization of AI technology and the rise of remote banking. This has prompted corporate and individual customers to turn to mobile terminals for various financial services, resulting in a reduction in offline counter business volume, and the bank's recruitment demand for counter employees has shrunk accordingly.

At present, the branch where Zhang Jian works is also facing business transformation — transforming from a traditional branch into a technology-focused branch dedicated to sci-tech financial credit.

He admitted that the branch transformation is also related to the decline in its counter service business volume in recent years. In the past three years, as customers of the branch have increasingly favored online financial services, the number of accounts opened, the sales of wealth management products and the amount of deposits absorbed completed at the branch's counter have failed to meet the assessment requirements. The branch noticed that there are multiple sci-tech industrial parks gathered around this branch, so it decided to transform it into a technology branch.

Zhang Jian said that the branch's HR department is working on transferring dozens of customer service personnel who have been "replaced" by AI to account managers. The head of the branch's HR department told him that in this year's autumn recruitment, the branch has reduced the number of customer service positions recruited, because under the trend of the continuous popularization of intelligent customer service, the branch no longer has the demand for supplementing customer service staff.

Zhao Qian has also felt the substitution effect of AI on repetitive jobs in banks — as AI takes on more work in internal office, customer service, counter services, management support and other fields, the actual recruitment demand of her bank for relevant repetitive jobs in this year's autumn recruitment is less than 2,900, down by 1,200 and 1,400 respectively compared with the previous two years.

"Many recruitment positions for fresh graduates are bank operation posts and business trainees that tend to do repetitive work, but in fact, the bank will focus on training them to become account managers engaged in marketing work," Zhao Qian told reporters.

As of the end of June this year, employees in positions such as bank customer service, management support and counter work accounted for more than 30% of the total number of employees in the bank where Zhao Qian works. Zhao Qian said that the bank's senior management believes that with the deepening application of AI technology in internal office, customer service, automated operation of basic financial services and other aspects, this proportion may drop to about 20% in the future.

More fintech and marketing positions

Zhao Qian noticed that the recruitment demand for fintech, risk control compliance and marketing positions keeps growing.

In this year's autumn recruitment, the number of recruits for marketing and fintech positions in her bank has increased by more than 300 and 400 respectively compared with last year.

"The actual number of recruited personnel is even higher," Zhao Qian said. In the autumn recruitment, the management trainee positions at the head office require fresh graduates to have industrial background, fintech R&D capabilities and financial knowledge reserve. This indicates that their job positions in the bank will focus on the coordination of fintech and business expansion. The business trainee positions of branches require fresh graduates to have excellent expression and communication skills, and it is not excluded that the branches will eventually arrange them to marketing positions such as comprehensive account managers.

In Zhao Qian's view, this is related to the bank's adjustment of business strategies. Since this year, the bank has been committed to promoting "business and technology coordination", and the recruitment demand for fintech positions has risen accordingly.

Last year, the senior management of the bank where Zhao Qian works noticed that there was an obvious disconnect between the technology department and the front-line business demand — after the account managers put forward the specific demands of customers for digital and intelligent financial services to the technology department, the technology department was often restricted by the internal review process and the overall arrangement of staff, and the response speed was always a step slower, causing the bank to miss a large number of business opportunities.

Earlier this year, the senior management of this bank decided to arrange the bank's AI technology R&D personnel to work directly at branch outlets, to quickly respond to and solve various financial service demands encountered by account managers in the process of expanding business and acquiring customers.

According to the plan, each branch needs to allocate two AI technology R&D personnel to key branches in its jurisdiction. However, most branches reported that their local technology departments are understaffed. This prompted the bank to decide to recruit a group of fresh graduates with AI technology R&D skills in this year's autumn recruitment, first train them to become "technical talents who understand finance", and then arrange them to work in branches to build a "business and technology coordinated" financial service system together with account managers.

Zhao Qian said that in addition to promoting the business strategy of "business and technology coordination", another business strategy of her bank this year is to enhance the financial service capability for young customer groups. Therefore, the bank recruits a group of fresh graduates who know how to communicate with young entrepreneurs and young retail users through this year's autumn recruitment, trains them to become account managers, and expands financial business for young customer groups.

Li Zhi is the head of the HR department of a large state-owned bank's East China branch. He told reporters that under the environment where the downward pressure on net interest margin still exists and the transformation of light capital operation is urgent, the bank's senior management has formulated the business strategy of "not pursuing the expansion of personnel scale, focusing on the improvement of per capita productivity and the optimization of talent structure". Affected by this, the number of autumn recruitment positions in his bank this year is about 11,000, down by more than 10% compared with last year.

"For positions in data governance, AI modeling, and AI risk control R&D, the number of our autumn recruitment has increased instead of decreased, rising by more than 5% compared with last year, with a total increase of more than 50 positions," Li Zhi said. Banks are paying increasing attention to data-driven business expansion, as well as digital and intelligent empowerment to improve asset quality and upgrade financial services, which drives the increase in demand for relevant fintech positions. When setting recruitment requirements for marketing positions in the autumn recruitment, if fresh graduates have scientific and technological R&D capabilities, it will be an important "plus point".

Wang Pengbo, an analyst from Bocom Consulting, believes that the future recruitment demand of banks will still "rise and fall" on different tracks. On the one hand, the demand for standardized operation positions will continue to decline, for example, repetitive jobs such as simple data verification and basic customer service will be continuously replaced by automated processes and AI; on the other hand, the recruitment demand for technology positions such as AI large model R&D and data governance will further increase.

"In this process, the requirements of banks for young people's work ability have also undergone profound changes. In the future, banks will pay more attention to whether they can use digital and intelligent tools to solve practical work problems and risks, and bring more considerable actual performance to the bank," Wang Pengbo said.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Economic Observer", written by Chen Zhi, authorized for release by 36Kr.