What are Your Special Skills?
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
84% of hiring managers say they plan to offer higher salaries for candidates with specialized skills, according to The Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide. This includes data from nearly 2,000 workers and 2,200 hiring managers in the United States.
What are specialized skills? The most in-demand skills that hiring managers are willing to pay more for, and how much more they expect to offer for them, include:
Artificial intelligence and machine learning: 4.1%
Public accounting, tax, audit and assurance: 3.7%
Content strategy, digital project management and marketing analytics: 3.3%
Customer support and healthcare administration: 3.0%
Legal contract management: 2.7%
Compensation and benefits: 2.4%
Regarding the AI part, a word of caution: When hiring managers say that they are willing to pay more for AI experience, they do not mean general AI. They mean AI as it relates to their objectives. So, for example, if you have experience using AI for marketing content generation, and they need it for revenue monitoring, you probably won’t get the job even though they are asking for AI experience and you have AI experience.
None of the above skills are meant to be general. You are meant to have specific experience and background in solving the specific problems that the specific company is struggling with right now.
Everyone is already feeling this pull toward specialization.
Chief Operations Officers and Chief Commercial Officers who direct overall strategy, mission, and vision for a company need knowledge of AI as it pertains how you plan on integrating AI into your operations to maintain relevance and marketplace share.
Non-executive employees already feel the sting of specialization and AI. This is apparent in the mass layoffs by companies like Accenture and UPS who made it clear that they laid off thousands so they could remain relevant as AI takes off in an increasingly automated world.
This skills specialization and the resulting disconnect between what companies want and what job candidates offer will continue well into 2030, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report.
Questions about this? Contact me at soozy@controlyourcareer.net.
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