HR professionals of the future will be expected to have sales and marketing skills in order to recruit effectively, according to a new survey.

The vast majority (85%) of respondents to the Webster Buchanan survey said they regarded recruitment as a sales and marketing exercise, as opposed to a purely HR one. Indeed, 87% believe that HR should be exploiting skills from these departments in order to improve recruitment.

Recruitment challenges identified by the survey include being able to reach a wide enough audience in order to hire the best talent. Four in five respondents rated the internet as the best way to increase their reach, although just 16% said their corporate websites allow the submission of job applications. Despite the growth of social networking sites like Facebook, companies are reluctant to use them as a recruitment tool, ranking them tenth-most useful.