Fully one-third (33.3%) of advertising and marketing executives surveyed say they are planning to fill design or marketing positions in the first quarter of 2013, according to a survey from The Creative Group.

However, agencies are hiring more actively than brands: 51.0% of ad execs plan to hire creative talent in the first quarter, compared with 32.8% of marketing professionals who plan to do the same.

Midsize agencies are expecting the most hiring activity: 62.0% of ad execs working in such firms plan to add creative staff in 1Q13.

Below, additional findings from The Creative Group.

Account Services, Social Media Jobs in Demand

Marketing roles in account services (13%) are expected to be in greatest demand during the first part of 2013, followed by jobs in social media (9%), media services (9%), brand/product management (8%), and public relations (7%):

Areas such as print design/production (7%) and Web design/production (7%) are lower priorities for recruiters in 1Q13, as is copywriting (6%), creative/art direction (5%), marketing research (5%), mobile apps development (5%), and interactive media (5%).

Teamwork Skills a Must

Among ad and marketing execs, teamwork and collaboration skills are viewed as most important when hiring creative professionals, outweighing creativity (16%), attention to detail (16%), and reliability (14%):

Recruiting Challenges

Is the hiring bar too high?

Despite relatively high national unemployment levels, nearly 4 in 10 marketing and ad execs say it's very challenging (14%) or somewhat challenging (25%) to find skilled creative professionals today, compared with 33% who say finding talent isn't challenging at all:

Hiring managers at midsize ad agencies (50-99 employees) report the greatest difficulty in finding talented professionals: 61% say it's somewhat challenging or very challenging to do so.

Gain more insights into0 the latest hiring and salary trends using The Creative Group's Salary Calculator.

About the data: Findings are based on a survey of 452 participants including 326 marketing executives randomly selected from companies with 100+ employees and 126 advertising executives randomly selected from agencies with 20+ employees. Interviews were conducted via telephone in November 2012.