Top five skills recruiters are struggling the most to find in job candidates

Creativity and originality

Critical thinking and analytical

Reasoning and problem-solving

Leadership and social influence

Initiative taking

In India, there is a positive hiring sentiment across sectors, Sandeep Gulati, Managing Director, ManpowerGroup India, said, adding, "We are, however, faced with an unprecedented demand-supply gap as indicated by our Talent Shortage Survey. Reskilling and upskilling the workforce to mitigate this gap should be the highest priority for employers and industry players like us.”

According to the survey, 81 percent of employees expect training programmes from their employers to help keep skills up to date.

ManpowerGroup believes that an effective talent strategy should comprise a mix of four key elements:

Build: Invest in learning and development to grow your talent pipeline

Buy: Go to the external market to attract talent that can’t be built in-house

Borrow: Cultivate communities of talent outside the organisation

Bridge: Help people move on or move up to new roles within an organisation

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Michael Page, in its report The GreatX, said there had been a rise of "soft motivators" influencing candidates' decisions on where to work. “To attract and retain talent, companies can no longer think of 'soft' motivators as nice-to-haves, but as factors that would give them a crucial edge over competitors in the war for talent,” it said.

These motivators include aspects like salary/bonus/rewards, company culture and value, a sense of purpose, leadership, company brand, promotion, flexible working arrangements, office location, technology provided, and environmental stability.