Alibaba shifts talent strategy, cuts graduate recruitment

Alibaba announced it would cut its graduate recruitment quota as part of a "talent strategy adjustment".

The Hangzhou-based company originally planned to recruit some 3,000 graduates in 2016. According to a post on its graduate hiring website earlier this month, however, the quota will be cut and the recruitment process will become more competitive.

Alibaba did not elaborate on the reasons behind its decision.

In response to hearsay that the firm had slashed its quota to just 400 graduates, Qu Yang, who is responsible for graduate recruitment at Alibaba, told Xinhua on Monday that the company had already handed out 1,407 offers and several hundred more were in the pipeline.

Qu also denied speculation that the company had lowered graduate's starting salaries to deter applicants.

"Like in previous years, our salary standard is based on the overall market level and the human resources market," Qu said.

This shift in the talent strategy, however, has not come out of nowhere. In a speech released in April, Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma said the company had developed too quickly, and its over 30,000 employees were enough.

"We will only recruit when we have vacancies," he said.

Alibaba, like any other large company, must balance efficiency with costs.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange in September last year, the company's shares have fallen from an all-time high of 120 U.S. dollars to 63.91 dollars.

The company posted slower-than-expected revenue growth of 28 percent in the second quarter of the year, slowing from 45 percent in the first quarter as a slowing economy dragged down consumer spending.