"Nuohui Health" Personnel Exploration: Emphasizing both Sales and Research and Development, Willing to Cultivate Talents from Scratch | Spring Recruitment Report

In 2024, the persistent challenge of "finding reliable jobs" and "hiring reliable people" continues to coexist. We firmly believe that aside from traditional large companies, there are still a large number of employers in the market that are suitable for the next era's dividends waiting to be discovered. Understanding the potential of the industry, business logic, and personnel situation determines the job seekers' choice of companies and also influences the quality and depth of interview communication.

Anonymous company gossip may be helpful in avoiding pitfalls in job hunting, but those scarce and growing career opportunities should not be missed due to a random online comment. During the high recruitment seasons of spring and autumn, 36Kr's @Workplace Bonus uses a professional scoring model to select a group of "dividend companies" that are recruiting and conducts on-site visits. It combines the perspectives of investors and headhunters to ask employers questions, bringing you a "comprehensive understanding" of the recruitment of dividend companies.

According to Workplace Bonus, China's first biotechnology company focused on early screening for high-incidence cancers, "Nuohui Health," is currently recruiting for the spring of 2024. The key positions being recruited for are research and development engineers, while sales positions are being simultaneously conducted in multiple cities nationwide. This round of recruitment also includes positions such as new media operations manager, Douyin short video operations manager, industry sales manager (Beijing), retail sales manager (Beijing), senior media manager, e-commerce business development, clinical research and development, and engineers.

Established in Hangzhou, Zhejiang in 2015, Nuohui Health is China's first biotechnology company dedicated to early screening for high-incidence cancers in the home. Cancer, known as the "king of diseases," often does not occur suddenly but is suddenly discovered. The earlier cancer screening is conducted, the earlier the diagnosis and treatment can be initiated, reducing the mortality rate and winning time for patients' lives. In 2020, Nuohui Health was granted the "First Certificate for Cancer Early Screening in China," and the cancer early screening project has increasingly gained favor in the capital market, once known as the first year of cancer early screening. In 2021, Nuohui Health was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the "first stock for cancer early screening in China." In 2023, Nuohui Health successfully "graduated from the Growth Enterprise Market" and became the seventh 18A biotechnology company to successfully "graduate from the Growth Enterprise Market" on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The three co-founders of Nuohui Health, Zhu Yeqing, Chen Yiyu, and Lv Ning, were classmates in the Department of Biochemistry at Peking University's School of Life Sciences. In 2015, they saw the market potential for early screening of high-incidence cancers and jointly established Nuohui Health in Hangzhou, developing China's first non-invasive early screening product for colorectal cancer, "Changweiqing," which caused a sensation in the market.

NuoHui Health's Hangzhou headquarters is located in the Hera Technology Park in the Binjiang District. From the office decor, one might be reminded of some foreign companies in Shanghai. The HR team also exudes a serious and professional "foreign enterprise" vibe.

Li Hong, the head of organizational development at NuoHui Health, said, "Cultivating excellent talents and building corporate culture is a long-term process. The company's founder, Zhu Yeqing, previously worked at General Electric Company (GE) and placed great emphasis on leadership development and cultural construction." This partly explains the "foreign company vibe" we perceive as visitors. In 1956, the Crotonville Management Institute of General Electric Company was officially established. Relying on this world's first corporate university to provide leadership nourishment, General Electric created a long-lasting commercial empire.

In fact, since its inception when it had only about a hundred employees, NuoHui Health has been focusing on future talent pipeline construction and leadership development. Taking targeted training programs as an example, tailored programs such as "Xuhui," "Shenghui," and "Yaohui" were established, corresponding to leadership development for grassroots, mid-level, and senior managers, respectively. For NuoHui Health, which is currently setting up sales teams in multiple cities nationwide and encourages internal promotion, "leadership" and organizational development are particularly important topics, providing scientifically constructed career advancement opportunities for newly joined young talents.

Despite the urgent need for talent, NuoHui Health does not blindly recruit. Recruitment efforts in recent years have relatively emphasized the alignment of talents with the company's cultural values—those who can recognize and believe in the "early screening of cancer" track, and those who are focused on doing "difficult but right" things.

Sales positions are the highlight of this year's recruitment efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the majority of cancers can be detected through screening in the early stages. However, in China, many people still avoid seeking medical attention, as evidenced by data from the National Cancer Center, which shows that in 2022, there were 590,000 new cases of colorectal cancer and nearly 310,000 deaths, with the number of new cases of colorectal cancer increasing annually from 2000 to 2022.

The early cancer screening market has tremendous growth potential. According to a report by Sullivan, the colorectal cancer screening market in China is experiencing rapid growth, with the total market expected to reach 19.8 billion yuan by 2030 (excluding the market for non-colonoscopic screening).

In the early stages of commercialization, Nuohui Health aims to educate the market and cultivate the health management knowledge of potential users—this includes educating doctors, hospitals, and consumers. Only by recognizing and accepting early cancer screening products can they potentially become true users.

Last year's crackdown on corruption in the medical field made waves in the industry. Although it posed certain challenges to frontline sales promotion work in the short term, Li Hong stated, "In the long run, this has had a positive impact on the compliance of the entire industry. Nuohui Health has always adhered to compliance as its guiding principle, while advocating for the sales team to maintain organized learning of product knowledge and to broaden product sales methods and channels."

Currently, Nuohui Health's sales channels include clinical channels, physical examination channels, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels, covering hospitals, physical examination centers, insurance companies, retail pharmacies, internet medical platforms, and more. Although the market's acceptance of cancer screening products has greatly increased compared to before, Nuohui Health still believes that there is a lot of room for improvement in the penetration rate of their products and that a large number of sales talents are still needed to perfect them.

Regarding education for doctors and hospitals, Nuohui Health mainly reaches users through departments such as gastroenterology, colorectal surgery, and physical examination. In addition, endorsement from doctors and hospitals greatly increases consumer willingness to accept the products.

In terms of sales recruitment, Nuohui Health values applicants' original motivations and underlying abilities more than medical backgrounds; these are considered more important than experience and knowledge. For fresh graduates, the main criteria are whether they possess the ability to learn proactively and communicate effectively. Nuohui Health says they are "willing to cultivate outstanding young people from 0 to 1."

For mid- to senior-level sales management positions, Nuohui Health primarily focuses on internal development. For external candidates, an open mindset and the ability to embrace change are required, and actively immersing oneself in frontline work increases the likelihood of quickly familiarizing oneself with Nuohui's model and achieving success.

HR Team on the Professional Track:

Focused on your career advancement, salary increases, and leadership development.

From a team of less than 100 people to now surpassing a thousand, with the rapid development of Nuohui Health's business, the HR team faces many challenges.

In terms of performance evaluations, Nuohui Health's R&D team uses project milestones/key checkpoints as evaluation criteria, with overall longer evaluation periods. The sales department, due to its clear performance requirements, relies directly on achievements, typically evaluated on a monthly basis. Most functional positions are also primarily evaluated on a monthly basis.

Compared to many companies of similar scale, Nuohui Health places great emphasis on organizational development. Starting from a few years ago, the HR team has been conducting an annual "organizational dynamics survey" to identify challenges and issues at the organizational level, and to introduce solutions to address these issues based on the survey results. Li Hong stated, "We need to continuously consider the growth of employees and the optimization of organizational mechanisms, and how to better align with the development of the business."

Previously, some Nuohui Health employees provided internal feedback that the company's development channels and talent standards were not clear. In rapid response, Nuohui Health established a dual-channel and job-level system, and last year, collaborated with the well-known leadership consulting company DDI to establish Nuohui's talent philosophy and competency model, which will make our talent strategy and development increasingly clear," Li Hong explained.

"Achievement through self-motivation" is the talent concept of Nuohui Health. They believe that those who aspire to continuous development have a very strong self-driven nature. The so-called "self-drive" includes three specific qualities:

Big-picture thinking. Nuohui Health hopes that employees possess courtyard thinking, balcony thinking, and helicopter thinking. At different stages of growth, they should have a broader and higher level of thinking. For example, when working at the grassroots level, they should approach problems from the perspective of middle management.

Unwillingness to be mediocre. Nuohui Health hopes that employees have a spirit of pursuing excellence, rather than settling for mediocrity, and continuously strive for higher challenges. After achieving a score of 100, they should have the courage to aim for a higher score of 110.

Curiosity. This is the key to a successful career for employees. A person with curiosity can identify and solve problems, while also being willing to try new things.

Nuohui Health also invests a lot of effort in the overall departmental goal planning each year. This year, the HR department hopes for a significant improvement in the Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) and organizational effectiveness indicators.

The Employee Net Promoter Score is a commonly used final result indicator for organizational and team surveys. The higher the net promoter score, the higher the willingness of employees to recommend the company and its products. The net promoter score is also a key indicator for measuring the ultimate cultural outcome of the company, and it requires the HR team to launch corresponding corporate culture initiatives to drive implementation.

Talent recruitment is not a one-time deal. In order to ensure a relatively balanced supply of talent, Nuohui Health is currently focusing on building the talent pipeline for the next 2-3 years. This year, the HR department hopes to significantly increase the talent reserves for key positions in each department (not equivalent to management positions).

As the company's business rapidly expands, Nuohui Health continuously raises the requirements for managers' capabilities. Nuohui Health has partnered with DDI Smart Consulting to further increase investment in leadership development based on the "Hui Series" project. Through systematic leadership development programs, they aim to help managers improve their skills in role transition, business management, team management, and other dimensions, in order to better lead their teams to achieve results.

About "Nuohui Health"

By understanding these, you can stay ahead of other job seekers.

Workplace Bonus: In this year's recruitment, there are many positions in e-commerce, new media, and retail. Will the business focus on these areas?

Li Hong: Our sales have three main channels:

[DTC] E-commerce, retail, etc., are all within the DTC [3]. Simply put, it's a new business model for To-C, which is different from traditional pharmaceutical companies. Currently, the overall growth in this area is quite good.

[Medical Examination] Currently, we have strategic partnerships with private chain medical examination institutions like iKang.

[Clinical] Mainly connecting with hospitals, and currently, this is the channel with the most personnel. The increase in personnel in these three channels happens every year, and relatively speaking, there will be more personnel increase in clinical and DTC.

Workplace Bonus: How does the number of employees in campus recruitment compare to experienced hires? Are the recruitment requirements high?

Li Hong: We recruit around 200 people through campus recruitment every year, and around 300 people through experienced hires. The focus for R&D positions is on experienced hires, and there are also internship positions available.

HR: We are very inclusive when it comes to educational background. We hire employees with different levels of education, from vocational certificates to doctoral degrees. For functional, operational, and sales positions, we currently do not have high educational requirements, and we continue to be open to all. Additionally, 35 years old is considered a prime age for us at Nuohui. There are many opportunities for you at Nuohui: if you have rich marketing experience and are familiar with the local medical market, you can consider a sales position; if you are focused on exploring and researching cutting-edge IVD technology, you can choose an R&D position; if you are proficient in mathematics and algorithm development languages like Python/R, you can try the role of an algorithm engineer. There is a lot of room for candidates to choose, and we look forward to working with outstanding individuals.

Workplace Bonus: How can employees obtain stocks or options?

Li Hong: Generally speaking, it is based on the value contribution and performance of the position. The greater the responsibility and contribution, and the continuous maintenance of high performance, the greater the opportunity to obtain stocks or options.

Workplace Bonus: How easy or difficult is it for Nuohui to receive resumes for positions in Hangzhou?

Li Hong: High-end R&D talents are relatively easier to recruit in Beijing, where we have a research institute. Sales positions are available nationwide, so it is relatively easy for job seekers to find suitable positions. Currently, most of the R&D personnel are in Hangzhou, and we are also able to attract many outstanding R&D talents from the Yangtze River Delta region. There is also a research center in Hong Kong, which is more suitable for international or Greater Bay Area talents.

Workplace Bonus: How many people are currently in the international research and development center in Hong Kong? What is the direction of research and development?

Li Hong: The main focus of the research and development team in Hong Kong is to develop future products for overseas markets, as there are differences between domestic regulatory requirements and those overseas.

Workplace Bonus: With companies like Alibaba in Hangzhou, does Nuohui's talent development and organizational culture get influenced by them?

Li Hong: Alibaba's cultural development is excellent and worth learning from. However, our approach is not purely to imitate. We always consider how these things should be implemented within Nuohui, which is a part we pay special attention to.