One look at Vietnamworks.com, a job and recruiting website in Vietnam, and it’s easy to see that the hunt is on for mid-level managers by local banks.

Customers transact with Eximbank in HCMC. The Vietnamese banking system is facing an increasing shortage of human resources, particularly mid-level managers

Eximbank wants to recruit a vice manager of sales, while Seabank is seeking a person to head one of its branches.

Vietnamese banking industry is facing capital and interest pressures but a shortage of human resources is fast rising to the top of the problem ladder.

Recruiting expert Le Thi Thuy Loan, director general of Le Loan Co., Ltd., a human resource company, said she had witnessed an obvious surge in banks recruiting middle managers in the last two or three years as banks were racing to open branches and trading offices.

The supply, however, can’t meet the demand. Loan said there’re applications for the jobs, but many applicants are under-qualified or ask for too high salary. For example, an applicant who is considered suitable for the job of managing a unit in a small bank demanded a salary of US$5,000 that the bank can’t afford.

The situation is everywhere because it’s a job hunters market.

Job-hopping is also an issue for the sector. The sales manager of a State-owned commercial bank said a number of his employees left for better pay at other jobs, which they probably would in turn leave later on.

The lower paying State-owned banks are particularly suffering.

“It’s hard to find a good manager, but keeping him in your company is even harder,” the director of a small local bank said, adding the shortage of middle managers was the biggest challenge his bank was facing.

He said his bank had decided to support a talented and hard-working vice manager, by sending him to study abroad for three years. But when he came back he left after a year.

The steady recruitments have attracted applicants from other backgrounds including teaching.

Le Tham Duong, head of the business administration department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Banking, said the cross over had caused a weakness in middle management.

Many banks have had to employ staff with lackluster work histories at State-owned commercial banks then support them with short training courses.

The shortage of good courses in banking management in local banking universities has been partly blamed for the dearth.