The ongoing war for talent is not just being fought between employers. Even recruitment firms are re-inventing themselves to steal a march on the competition.

Increasingly, they are setting up dedicated units - in some cases even spin-off companies - that hire solely for specific industries, with the engineering, financial and information technology (IT) sectors leading the way.

While there are no recent figures available on how many recruitment companies are operating in Singapore, human resource experts put the number at roughly 1,000 - and say it is growing.

The Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) - the only non-profit HR body in Singapore - now represents more than 3,000 HR professionals, an increase of about 15 per cent from last year, says executive director David Ang.

In the specialisation stakes, employment services firm Manpower Singapore has a team trained to find engineering talent with specific skills for different lines, such as oil and gas, construction, marine, chemical and bio-processing.

The company's general manager for Singapore, Rosa Goh, told BT: 'Our engineering consultants source all levels of skills to cater to the specific needs of clients. Our clients benefit because there is one line of contact for all jobs related to engineering, and our subject-matter experts speak their lingo and understand the demand in the market.

'In addition, sound advice on salary benchmarks and cross-border attraction is critical to employers, who may not have all the info and connections.'

Other sectors seeing heavy demand for manpower include call centres, IT, finance and accounting, HR and hospitality, says Ms Goh.

Recruitment consultancy Robert Walters, which specialises in finding mid to senior-level professionals, has a dedicated IT specialist division that places candidates across a range of companies, such as banks.

Walters also has a specialist sales and marketing division that hires for industries such as pharmaceuticals, luxury goods, financial services and hospitality.

Another recruitment consultancy, GMP Group, has also steered away from a generalist role. It has specialist divisions that hire solely for individual sectors, like banking and technology, says chief executive Annie Yap.

But it's not just management-level staff that employers are chasing. In some industries, such as the life sciences, the talent crunch filtered down the ranks.

In a recent BT report, biomedical sciences headhunting firm ScienTec Consulting said it had set up a new unit, ScienTec Personnel Division, to find junior staff, with about 100 assignments expected to come up in the next quarter.

Giving his take on the growing trend of niche hiring, SHRI's Mr Ang said: 'It makes good economic sense. You have staff who understand the industry their clients are in and know exactly the type of person they want. If you let a fresh graduate, or someone with very little experience, hire for a particular field, it's unlikely they would know whether a job-seeker is a suitable candidate.'

Focusing on recruiting for particular industries is not the only way to ensure a good match between job-seeker and employer, according to Andrea Ross, director of Robert Walters Singapore.

'Unlike other recruitment consultancies, we don't limit ourselves by recruiting only for specific sectors,' she said. 'By focusing on job functions, our candidates can be exposed to more career options in terms of similar roles in other industries. Our clients have the benefit of selecting from a talent pool of professionals drawn from various backgrounds and experience.'

Through this strategy, Walters markets its candidates across a portfolio of different clients according to their experience, market knowledge and transferable skills.

'In a talent-short market, this lateral recruitment strategy has proved to be highly effective and has greatly expanded our pool of candidates,' said Ms Ross. 'They can be marketed across industries and organisations that might not even consider them potential candidates had we focused just on specific sectors.'

Paul Heng, managing director of Next Career Consulting, feels more recruitment firms will soon have dedicated teams to focus on the services industry, due to the dearth in management professionals for new projects such as the integrated resorts (IRs).

'There are hospitality, services and gaming positions to fill, and the hiring firms need to look for people with these skills to cater to their clients,' he said.

This view is echoed by GMP's Ms Yap: 'New trends like offshore oil production and mega public projects like the IRs have contributed to the increase in demand for talent.'

The signs, then, all point to an even tighter labour market. Last year was a record-breaker for Singapore, with 235,000 jobs created as unemployment plunged to an all-time low. Today, there are 1.4 positions available for every job-seeker.

This means more business for recruitment firms. Walters office in Singapore now employs 90 people, nearly double from just 50 a year ago. Manpower Singapore, too, saw healthy growth in the first quarter ended March 31, with net earnings soaring 27 per cent to US$75.5 million, up from US$59.5 million a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the Singapore National Employers' Federation expects job growth to moderate to between 3 per cent and 4 per cent in 2008, down from 7.7 per cent last year.

This article was first published in The Business Times on May 3, 2008.