Snatching up talents in Silicon Valley is fierce

By Han Shasha (People's Daily Online) 16:23, August 29, 2013

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With robust innovation and active entrepreneurial spirit, Silicon Valley is considered as ashrine for many dream seekers, and therefore becomes a hot job market in the world.Battling for talents among companies in the valley and abroad is fierce.

"Personnel flow is the driving force of innovation, which makes it the Silicon Valley," TomZhang, a headhunter with extensive connections in Silicon Valley told the reporter.

He worked at Google and Tencent before joining the Tesla Motors, a nobility that hasjumpstarted the auto industry’s movement into electric vehicles. He describes the sharpcompetitions for valued professionals among companies as a dog-eat-dog war.

Experienced engineers are being offered sky-high salaries. Zhang said that the averagesalary for a common engineer is at least $100,000 per year. Even in entry-level roles,young engineers are commanding jaw-dropping salaries. Seven of the top 10 highest-paidcollege degrees are in engineering, according to a recent report from the NationalAssociation of Colleges and Employers. According to Techcrunch, this is especially true in2013, which will be the first year in which most companies pay top engineering graduatesin Silicon Valley $100,000 or more per year in salary. It is not a big issue for thoseengineers who would like to settle down and have a house in Silicon Valley. In addition tosalary, some companies even provide options and stock.

Those companies spend large amount of money in recruiting. Some pay a $3,000 to$5,000 monthly subscription fee for access to recruiter companies’ coder database whileothers pay recruiter $10,000 per hire.

Jeremy Li now works at a high-tech company in Bay Area. He said that employees’recommendation is an important way for a company to get fresh blood. If the person yourecommend to your company is employed, you may get $5,000-10,000 from yourcompany as recruiting bonus. It’s said that every employee is naturally a headhunter. Butthere is an invisible rule - if your recommendation fails three times, you may lose yourcredibility. So they would have a good knowledge about the person rather than makerecommendation blindly.

Welfare is another attraction. Google was ranked the number one in Fortune’s 2013 list of"100 Best Companies to Work For." Actually, it’s the fourth time for the company beingawarded at the top. Although Todd Carlisle, Director of Staffing at Google said in June thatperks such as buses to work, free food and beer, don't play a role in attracting top talent.Twitter and Cisco disagreed saying these things are expected. It has been culture here.

Besides competing with local companies in the Silicon Valley, companies in Silicon Valleyhave to be wary of foreign companies and organizations. China’s Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba,and others are “stealing” engineers from here every year. With growing demand fortechnology professionals, China’s local industrial parks and other organizations alwayscome to Silicon Valley with favorable policies and lucrative conditions to lure talents back.

China currently is experiencing great changes. More and more Chinese students who studyin the United States are more willing to come back. Silicon Valley may be the cradle fortech start-ups, but some foreign-born executives, engineers and scientists are leaving forbetter opportunities back home, which further aggravates the talent war.

（Editor：YaoChun、Liang Jun）

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