Now that we are more than halfway through February, we thought we'd review hiring demand for social media skills. It's been a while since we reported on demand and supply of this talent, and we wanted to see if it is still a prevalent skill being listed in job ads.

During January 2012, there were about 13,000 job ads posted online that included job requirements involving social media skills. This is an 87% increase compared to the volume of ads in January 2011. Despite some declines in the volume of ads in November and December (likely just a seasonal trend), hiring has steadily increased over the past few year and has now hit a new high. We think it is safe to say that social media is not "just a trend" and that this will continue as more business functions adopt social strategies.

Hiring Demand for Social Media Skills – 4 Year Hiring Trend

Source: WANTED Analytics

As we see more social media platforms and ways to engage an audience online, the roles that demand these skills are changing. Marketing Managers and Public Relations Specialists are the 2 most common jobs that include this requirement in job ads. Marketers account for about 2,600 of the job ads at a 58% year-over-year increase. PR Managers and Specialists saw about 1,500 job ads, also increasing about 57% compared to January 2011.  Other common fields to require social media knowledge or experience in their job listings were Web Developers, Sales Representatives, Market Research Analysts, Recruiters, Software Engineers, Advertising Sales Agents, and Executive Secretaries or Administrative Assistants. These occupations also saw year-over-year increases in hiring demand. Sales Managers grew by more than 500% between January 2011 and January 2012 – the most of any occupation. Recruiters saw the second highest increase, up 131%.

Our Hiring Scale™ shows that social media skills are still moderately difficult to recruit. However, the degree of difficulty will vary by location depending on local talent supply and hiring demand. For example, Recruiters in Houston are likely to find these jobs harder than average to fill. The average duration of a job ad in Houston is 45 days – or just less than 7 weeks. In comparison, the average posting period across the US is about 6 weeks.

Hiring Scale for Social Media Skills in Houston, Texas

Source: WANTED Analytics