By Abby Lombardi on December 29, 2011 in Hiring Demand Indicators, Occupations.

In a recent Inc.com article, talent with creative design and user experience skills are projected to be difficult to recruit in 2012. Companies know that it is important to keep their customers engaged with their products and are likely to hire professionals across many fields that have a proven track record of successes in this area. We decided to take a look at hiring demand for this skill set to see what recruiting conditions look like as we enter the new year.

Overall, hiring has been high in 2011 with more than 14,000 job ads including these skill requirements in the past 90 days – a 17% year-over-year increase. Currently, more than 2,800 employers advertising job openings that require creative design or user experience skills. Below are the 15 companies with the most job ads and you can see that many have several job openings. For example, Microsoft is advertising 507 job openings across the United States – the most of any employer. With this volume of companies hiring for these skill sets, Recruiters are likely to face fierce competition.

Companies Currently Hiring for Creative Design and User Experience Skills

Jobs were advertised across many occupations, including Web Developers, Software Engineers, Marketing Managers, and Management Analysts. Our Hiring Scale™ shows that Marketing Managers with these skills are likely to be the most difficult to recruit of these fields. There are about 25 potential candidates in the US workforce for every Marketing job ad that included requirements for user experience or creative design skills. Some locations, like New York, will see more difficult recruiting conditions. In the New York area, the talent pool is smaller, with just 21 potential candidates with user experience and creative design skills for every Marketing job that required them. In comparison, the recruiting conditions for Management Analysts with these skills are likely to be easier since the talent pool is larger. Across the US, there are about 40 potential candidates for every advertised job opening.

Hiring Scale for Marketers with Creative Design or User Experience Skills – New York, NY vs. Nationally

Hiring Scale for Management Analysts with Creative Design or User Experience Skills – New York, NY vs. Nationally

Our Candidate Supply chart demonstrates that the talent pool of Marketers with these highly demanded skills is small, which contributes to the difficult recruiting conditions. Only about 7% of all Marketers in the current workforce across the US have these skills.

Candidate Supply of Marketers with User Experience and Creative Design Skills

If you are recruiting for creative design and user experience skills, you may experience challenges depending on the size of the local talent pool. By looking in other nearby areas, you are likely able to find more candidates. For example, Recruiters in New York may see conditions that are more difficult than average. However, Boston's talent pool is larger, with more than 28 potential candidates in their local workforce for every advertised job. Competition among employers is likely to be less and Recruiters are likely to fill jobs faster.

In addition, Recruiters may find potential candidates in other fields that are able to utilize their skills in a role you are trying to fill. Marketers with creative design or user experience skill may be hard to find, but professionals with E-Commerce, Advertising, Product Management, or Business Development job titles are also often required to have these customer-centric skills. Sourcing candidates with these titles will provide a larger pool of applicants to choose among and their past experience will be easily transferred to a Marketing role.

If you are recruiting for creative design or user experience skills, try our online Hiring Scale to see what recruiting conditions are like in your area, average salary ranges, and where to find hidden candidate pools.

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