I've been a headhunter for four years on Web3: I've seen the craziest robbers, and I've also seen it quietly transition to AI
Author: Joe Zhou, Foresight News Original title: I've been a headhunter in Web3 for 4 years: I've seen the craziest human robbery era, and I've been a headhunter for 4 years on Web3. At the craziest time, a Web3 company burned our recruitment budget of over 20 million in one quarter. Fresh graduates can earn one million a year after entering the business for half a year. The project party just finished financing in the morning and began recruiting 30 people in one go in the afternoon. At that stage, the entire industry was like an uncontrolled money printer. Doubling wages, no work, global remote, token incentives... everyone thinks Web3 money will continue to flow in this way. Even I myself began to think that this industry might actually go crazy forever. However, starting in the second half of 2025, it suddenly cooled down. There is less and less funding news, and the recruitment of HCs on the project side has shrunk in a round, and many bosses who had aggressively (aggressively) expanded before are slowly losing their jobs. Some people are starting to travel. Some companies even just disappeared. Headhunters are the industry's thermometer. The craziness and desolation of all racetracks will be reflected first and most realistically in recruitment needs. This is me, as a Web3 headhunter, that I have seen with my own eyes the madness, bubbles, cooling down, and reorganization over the past four years. “At its craziest, one company burned 20 million.” Four years ago, I first started working as a Web3 headhunter. At the time, I didn't understand anything, and I couldn't even explain what blockchain was. I only know that the company suddenly connected with a “technology-based project partner”. It's so mysterious that I'm not even too embarrassed to say the name. As a result, we helped them recruit almost 20 people and collected 3 million in headhunting fees. You read that right. One company, in one quarter, recruits 20 or 30 people and pays more than 3 million for headhunting alone. If calculated at a rate of 25% of headhunting fees, the combined annual salary of these people is at least 12 million or more. Coupled with benefits, bonuses, etc., this company spent at least 20 million dollars a year on only the money it burned on the “person” found by a headhunter, and there were many similar stories in that year. At that time, Web3, almost every project was expanding like crazy. Many companies have just completed their financing. The first thing they do is not to make a product, but to set up a team first. It doesn't matter if the product comes out first. People must grab it first. One time I was particularly impressed by helping a leading crypto company promote a fresh graduate. To be honest, I was hesitant at first — customers wanted younger ones, but they couldn't be new. However, that kid has a really good background. He graduated from the top 3 universities, and also worked on blockchain-related scientific research projects during his college years. After learning about this company, he showed great enthusiasm, thought the project was valuable, and also had his own unique opinion on the industry, which is rare. We generally don't promote fresh graduates; after all, most of them don't have any practical experience. But I still had the mentality of trying it out and recommended him to a leading crypto company. As a result, the other party directly paid an annual salary of nearly one million. He also had other offers, but this one was clearly higher. The overall market was good that year. By the end of the year, his performance, along with salary increases and year-end bonuses, in less than a year — half a year to be exact — he actually earned more than one million dollars. Are you saying this is an ability? Is it luck? Or is it a gift of the times? I think they have it all. People have been sensing the temperature of the industry for a long time. The first thing I do every day is brush up on financing news. From 2022 to the first half of 2023, Web3 received more than a dozen financing messages every day, worth tens of millions of dollars at a loss. It's impossible for us to get in touch with every company. So then our logic was simple: focus only on the projects with the highest amount of financing. Because they are the richest and the most willing to expand. In those few years, the entire industry was in a state of extreme excitement. As soon as the project was funded, jobs were already being released. Some teams don't even have a full product. There is only one PPT. But even that doesn't prevent them from opening dozens of HC (recruitment places) in one go. That stage is also the best time for headhunters to make money. Many projects, from 0 to 1, are frantically robbing people at home. There are also many people who realized for the first time that they can earn far more money than they used to do in major internet companies without attending classes. To this day, leading exchanges are still recruiting people steadily. But the logic is completely different from what it used to be. It used to be an expansion. Now it's more of a normal business iteration. New businesses will only add a little HC. Moreover, recruitment requirements are significantly higher. They want the new recruits to be better than the original employees. Overall, the top deal...
