Dive Brief:

• About 41% of marketing and advertising executives said they find it "somewhat" or "very challenging" to find skilled professional talent in today's marketplace, according to a survey conducted by staffing firm The Creative Group.
• 25% of those surveyed said they plan to freeze hiring and not fill vacated positions, while 13% are planning on expanding their teams in the second half of 2016. 
• The most in-demand marketing specialties were content marketing, brand/product management, digital marketing and web design/production. 

Dive Insight:

Today's digitally-focused climate has led many marketing and advertising executives to seek different skills than in years past. 

"Many companies are adding to their bench of marketing talent, particularly within the digital space," said Diane Domeyer, executive director of The Creative Group, in a statement. 

Separate research conducted by Fractl and Moz, in which they mined over 75,000 job listings posted on Indeed.com during June 2015, found that marketing skills are in fact in high demand — but hiring managers are struggling to find talent.

“Many believe this rapid rate of change has caused a marketing skills gap, making it difficult to find candidates with the technical, creative, and business proficiencies needed to succeed in digital marketing,” Kelsey Libert wrote in a blog post on the report. 

Those findings are reaffirmed in the research conducted by The Creative Group, with respondents saying that the most in-demand speciality skills areas — web/design production, customer experience, brand/product management and content marketing — are also the most difficult to find.