The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is transforming its non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps from traditional “senior enlisted leaders who act as the link between soldiers and officers” into a professionalized backbone force of technical specialists proficient in advanced technologies. The targeted training NCO [定向培养军士] program enables the PLA to recruit NCOs directly from educated civilians, using technical training at civilian institutions to reduce the burden of training junior enlisted ranks in the expansion of the NCO corps. The 2025 recruitment plan of the targeted training NCOs provides us with a glance at the PLA’s system of human resource allocation in the preparation for future intelligent and multi-domain warfare. It discloses the modernization paths of the PLA Army (PLAA), PLA Navy (PLAN), PLA Air Force (PLAAF), and PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), which aim to collaborate and complement one another to build an integrated joint operations system. In addition, the allocated recruitment quota for the newly created Aerospace Force (ASF), Cyberspace Force (CSF), and Information Support Force (ISF), for the first time, paints a picture of these future new-quality combat forces, revealing their combat missions as both a support command to leverage the resources within the PLA and as a pioneer force to explore force employment with its unique talent acquisition strategy. The 2025 recruitment data reveals that the PLA is undergoing personnel restructuring, prioritizing a highly specialized NCO corps to directly support the new strategic forces and accelerating the development of high-quality technical personnel in key warfighting domains.