Sales-related roles account for four of the top 10 most difficult-to-fill roles in Australia, with up to 13.6% of vacancies taking more than three months to fill, according to an Indeed report released this morning.

Carrera Partners managing director Michael Floyd said demand in the sales and marketing niche is significantly higher than it’s been for the past three years.

Job opportunities now outweigh the supply of high-quality candidates, as many companies that delayed recruiting decisions in light of soft economic conditions return to hiring mode, he said.

“There’s an acceptance that this is how it is now, so there’s investment in new structures of sales and marketing people that will approach new channels of distribution. There’s also an acceptance that business needs new skills. There’s a bit of replacing talent with a higher calibre [of employee],” Floyd said.

Clients now want salespeople with broader commercial and analytical skills, he said.

“Sales historically has been a very relationship-driven type of function. Now the skills that are needed to be a highly successful salesperson are far more commercial, so there’s a need to be more understanding or more strategic in your thinking around, ‘what is it that my customer wants and how am I going to best achieve that in line with what my business wants to achieve?'” said Floyd.

“People need to be more highly analytical so that they can analyse a set of circumstances, interpret, and develop outcomes or recommendations… rather than just relying on the traditional, old relationship to pull things through.”

On the marketing side, clients want candidates who can engage with the end user, but also those with a strong focus on execution, Floyd said.

“Historically, it was more product and concept development right through to execution. Now, in many cases a lot of the product or concept development is done overseas and it’s purely an executional role here,” he said.

Michael Page sales, marketing, retail and digital director David Khadi said his company’s sales and marketing job volumes are also up on this time last year.

“We’ve definitely come out of the box much quicker this year in regards to clients looking to engage us for talented individuals across sales and marketing,” he said.

“On the other side of the fence, we’ve also had a lot of [interest from] candidates. Not only the actively-seeking-job types that typically apply for lots of jobs, but also the people that have been in jobs for a couple of years and maybe had some nervousness around moves… Now they’ve got a little bit of confidence in the marketplace to approach us proactively.”

The roles driving hiring activity on the marketing side generally involve an element of customer acquisition and retention, said Khadi.

“That skillset’s quite important and that’s really about just driving [companies’] customer base,” he said.

“Funnily enough, there’s the same trend on the sales side.”

Demand no longer centres around traditional account management positions, as clients now want “that real hunter-type of salesperson”, said Khadi.

“[Clients are] looking at new markets, new customers and targeting quite an aggressive growth target and sales target,” he said.

“Clients might not necessarily come to us and say, ‘we’ve got a job on’. They’re briefing us and saying, ‘okay, if you do find someone who has this skillset and has experience in driving acquisition, retention or [is] a real hunter from a sales perspective, then have a chat with us’.”

WA picking up after slow start to the year

Sales and marketing hiring activity is slightly quieter in WA, where the mining downturn continues to affect confidence, said Perth-based recruiter Ryan Westaway, who specialised in sales and marketing at Talentpath prior to opening his own recruitment business, Westaway Executive Search, earlier this month.

“February was very quiet – probably the quietest February I’ve ever seen – however, March has certainly been very busy I’ve found in the market and probably busier than this time last year,” he said.

Many clients, however, are still unprepared to ramp up hiring with the recent economic softness and mining downturn fresh in their minds, said Westaway.

“It makes our life difficult because MDs [and] GMs – they’re not wanting to go out and spend money on recruitment because they’re not sure [about] the longevity of their company. They’re trying to consolidate,” he said.

Reverse marketing is an increasingly important skill for recruiters to cultivate, because most clients are open to hiring if the right individual comes their way, Westaway said.

“That’s how a lot of my placements arise. I think as a recruiter you have to look a little bit more outside the box and really back the people… who you’re representing – the candidates.

“Organisations, even if they’re not advertising and they haven’t contacted a recruiter, they’re always going to be happy to invest in staff as long as you find them a really good individual.”

Job ad volumes decline following seasonal peak

Sales job ad volumes have weakened since the end of 2014, when seasonal demand from retailers boosted recruitment to a high, according to figures from labour market monitor HRO2 Research.

The index, which tracks demand against a base level of 100 set in January 2014, declined from 112.24 in November to 93.77 in February; however, HRO2 Research director Bob Olivier said a lot of this volatility is on the temp side and the national data is steady.

Olivier said the below pie chart illustrates the broad range of industries hiring sales personnel.

While thousands of employers are hiring in sales, no-one is hiring in any great volume, which suggests recruiters need a wide range of clients in their portfolio to generate good volume, he said.