Asked to list the reasons behind their frustrating recruiting efforts, respondents pointed to a small number of applicants, candidates without the needed work experience, competition from other employers, candidates' lack of technical skills, and the local market not producing enough qualified candidates as the primary pain points.

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A good example of the disconnect can be seen in responses to questions about the approach companies are actually taking to try to address the talent shortage, versus the approach HR professionals believe will work best.

"Although the most common strategy HR professionals report their organizations are taking to recruit for full-time regular positions is to leverage social media, the approach they consider most effective is to train existing employees to take on hard-to-fill roles," the report says. "This emphasizes the need to address skills shortages in the talent market as well as the importance of addressing skills gaps within the existing workforce."

When responses were analyzed by industry and company size, the report said the industries reporting the toughest time filling open positions were the health and social assistance and manufacturing industries. Nearly half of respondents indicated that the most difficult-to-recruit-for positions are in the high-skilled medical job categories.

And perhaps not surprisingly, smaller organizations reported the greatest difficulty in filling full-time manager and skilled trade positions.

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While the battle for talent isn't news, the detail the report offers on the lack of skilled applicants is. These shortages are chronicled both in basic and applied skills. The report's findings say:

• The top basic skills shortages identified are writing in English, basic computer skills, spoken English language, reading comprehension, and mathematics

• The most commonly reported applied skills shortages are critical thinking/problem-solving, professionalism/work ethic, leadership, written communications, and teamwork/collaboration

When the survey questions focused on resources, one would assume that recruiters have a hiring and training budget, given the lack of skills being reported. However, that's not necessarily the case.

"It is not uncommon for HR professionals to work without a training budget. Whereas 69 percent of HR professionals surveyed said their organization had a training budget over the last 12 months, almost one-third (31 percent) reported that their organization did not," the report says.

For those who have training budgets, only 39 percent said theirs was increased over the last 12 months. For most, it either remained the same or, in the case of 11 percent of respondents, was slashed.