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Vacancies in sales and operations roles are hardest to fill in Singapore

Sales and operations are the hardest roles to fill in Singapore's employee-driven market, with employers complaining of a lack of skilled talent.

Despite 93% of employers intending to hire right up till May 2016, the positive hiring outlook is impeded by a shortage of manpower, in CareerBuilder Singapore's new survey of 157 Singapore hiring managers and HR professionals from both public and private sectors.

While 37% and 25% of organisations are looking to fill sales and operations roles respectively, another one in five are hiring to fill administration roles as well (21%).

Jessica Ang, marketing director at CareerBuilder Singapore, pointed out there could be a number of reasons behind this labour shortage -  ranging from lack of employer branding, to recruiters using the wrong tools in attracting candidates.

However, employers are most keen to use higher starting salaries to attract new employees (32%), a phenomenon most prevalent in the services sector (35%), compared to non-service sector hiring (11%).

Overall, close to two in three employers (62%) stated they will offer starting salaries on par with market standards.

The generosity in pay extended to current employees as well, with over three in four employers (76%) intending to increase salaries.

This promise was highest in the services sector (77%) versus employers in non-services industries (65%).

ALSO READ: Why morale in the advertising industry is dangerously low"

In reaching out to new candidates to fill vacancies, online job boards are the most common tool of choice, listed as effective by more than two-third of employers (68%), an increase from the 53% in 2013.

Social media is also gaining popularity, with 25% of hirers turning to it for their talent search.

Apart from manually tapping recruitment platforms, Singapore recruiters were not very enthusiastic about cloud-based recruitment software or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technologies.

Of those surveyed, only 1% were using SaaS in their recruitment efforts, while more than half (51%) were actually unaware of SaaS recruitment solutions.

Image: Shutterstock

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