Over the last few months, it seems like the PR job market has opened up a bit. I say that anecdotally–I have no hard numbers. I’ve just heard about a lot more openings lately–especially on the agency side (just check Ryan May’s blog locally for proof).

But, I also continue to hear that companies and agencies are struggling to find certain candidates. Certain skill sets. Certain mixtures of talent.

As many of you know, I have a certain passion for helping people connect with mentors and colleagues and assisting people with the job search process (been helping a number of friends this week, in fact). I founded HAPPO with my friend Valerie Simon earlier this year for that exact reason (look for more information about upcoming HAPPO events very soon!). And I see the same thing these agencies do–holes in the talent pool.

So, I thought it would be interesting to ask the agency folks that are charged with recruiting new talent and making hiring decisions about the digital skills they have a tough time finding in the marketplace–and what they’re doing to overcome those challenges.

I polled a cross-section of agency owners, principals and recruiters from big, international agencies to smaller, more regional shops. Here’s what they had to say:

* Gini Dietrich, president-Arment Dietrich. “I don’t think it’s a digital skill that employees/candidates are missing. You can always find someone who has strengths where other have weaknesses. What we have the hardest time finding is someone who can integrate digital tactics with traditional tools and understand how to relate the work back to both strategy and business growth. Communication professionals, by trade, are very tactical people and don’t typically understand how a business makes money. We always have to teach that because we’ve yet been able to find a person who can integrate the tools and show a return-on-investment. We spend A LOT of time during our staff meetings every week talking about how each client’s business makes money and whether or not the work we’re doing is affecting their sales. So we’re overcoming it by education, education, education.”

* Beth Ward, senior vice president, partner and regional recruiter-Fleishman Hillard. “My biggest challenge with finding digital recruits is uncovering someone who has implemented a social campaign producing quantifiable results tied to a business objective or sale. It has always been hard to measure the business impact of earned media communications.  With the explosion of analytics, tracking, listening platforms and other measurement services it is easy to track but hard to demonstrate the direct effect. I really look for the applicants who can explain their strategy, describe program executions and defend their results.”

* B.L. Ochman, Managing Director of Emerging Media, Proof Integrated Communications. “The biggest challenge in digital hiring is finding people who have both case studies and a following in social media channels. While there is no shortage of people claiming to be social media experts, gurus and ninjas, there is an extreme dearth of people with actual client experience. People who talk the talk are a dime a dozen. However, saying that you can counsel clients on emerging media because you observe it online is like saying you are an Olympic swimmer because you watch swim meets on TV.”

* Todd Defren, principal-SHIFT Communications. “For my part, the focus lately has been on creative strategists (i.e., multichannel mindset) and SEO expertise. It can be hard to find someone who not only has the right philosophies but also is willing to work hard.  Interestingly, where I thought it might feel like a step down for a creative to work for a PR agency (vs. a hot interactive shop), I have found the opposite: the folks I’ve been most impressed with seem *keen* to work with PR; they see that our relationship-centric approach has merit beyond “just another campaign” and they feel challenged by that need to drive continuous value to community members and media.”

* John Schneider, Group Director-Digital and Social Strategy, Beehive PR. “It’s been hardest to get experience working with and a depth of understanding of analytics. And not just website analytics like Google Analytics or Omniture, but how to use data to support decisions and to inform directions, tactics and strategies across a range of efforts including social media broadly and certain platforms specifically. Skills in finding, filtering and fostering understanding around the value/application of this information is increasingly priority. It needs to be distributed across our organization, and it’s a must-have with new team members. We’re surrounded by the tools, and many of them are free. Yet, very few people take the time to arm and prepare themselves with this critical component of our work.

To work around this challenge, we’re using a consistent suite of tools that our team can quickly and consistently deepen their expertise in and looking at our process and workflows both critically and proactively. Our goals are to systematize some of the more time-intensive exercises and develop a curriculum to support quick onboarding of new team members. Additionally, we look for partners in the analytics and measurement space who partner with us not only to train new team members, but in an ongoing way with our current team to ensure we’re keeping our skills and knowledge sharp.”

What about you? If you’re an agency leader or if you’re on the corporate side and you’re charged with uncovering digital talent, what are you having a hard time finding–and how are you taking on that challenge?