Learn what they are, what they're worth, and how to get them.
In this complex, fast-changing job market, just putting in
the hours and being good at what you do may not be enough. You need an
edge. And the surest one these days is to possess the skills that are
most in demand in your field, that help your employer keep up with the
technological, economic, and social forces that are transforming so many
industries. The key, of course, is to know exactly what those skills
are, how to get them, and what the payoff will be.
To provide that critical insight, MONEY and compensation data and software company PayScale.com
teamed up to develop a unique new analysis of the skills that employers
place the highest value on now. Adding this know-how to your arsenal is
essential. “You can’t remain stagnant,” says Lydia Frank, PayScale’s
editorial director. “You always want to be learning something new; you
always want to be advancing.” (See more skills coverage from PayScale here.)
To identify the abilities that bring the greatest rewards,
MONEY and PayScale analyzed 54 million employee profiles, across 350
industries, with 15,000 job titles—from entry-level workers to top
execs. We compared people with the same title, age, location, and
experience, isolating the specific skills (from a universe of about
2,300) correlated with higher pay, advancement, and career opportunity.
The result: an authoritative list of the skills with the best payoff in
the workforce today. In general, we found that employers are willing to
pay up for these four types of talents.
Making Sense of Big Data
Across a variety of fields, workers earn more when they
can make sense of the exponentially more complex data now available
about the markets their employers serve. Although companies have long
tracked information about customers, sales, and suppliers, businesses
today have access to a far richer vein of information. Every time you
click on a website, shop online, watch a video, or do pretty much
anything else, you leave behind crumbs of information. “People now
create more data in an hour than they used to in a month,” says Traci
Fiatte, a group president at Randstad, an international provider of HR
services.
Thanks to massive improvements in the software that
collects, stores, and integrates data, companies can use this
information to do things like target new customers, improve service, and
offer more personalized products—as long as they employ folks who
understand how to organize, analyze, and apply it.
Enter the data maven. “Mainstream American companies have
come to realize that in order to become more effective in the
marketplace, they need to analyze data,” says Matt Sigelman, the CEO of Burning Glass Technologies,
which analyzes job listing information. “And we’re seeing those skills
showing up at a premium in a variety of industries, including marketing,
logistics jobs, and operations management jobs, just to name a few.”
Top data skills and their average pay boost:
- SAS (Statistical Analysis System): +6.1%
- Data Mining/Data Warehousing: +5.1%
- Data Modeling: +5%
Managing the Bottom Line
If you’re not a finance wonk, you might
be tempted to leave the numbers stuff to the bean counters upstairs. But
no matter where you sit in your firm’s org chart, you’ll get a boost by
understanding what keeps the company in the black. “When we ask our
alums what they’d do differently in their career, the most common
response is that they wish they’d taken more financial accounting
classes,” says Thomas Lys, a professor emeritus at Northwestern
University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Understanding how day-to-day deals and decisions affect
profitability becomes even more important as you advance. A separate
analysis of the skills that set apart executives from junior staff
puts management of profit and loss statements in the No. 2 spot.
Executives with that skill also earned 5.4% more than their peers.
“When I work with executives, I find that what’s really
missing is an understanding of big-picture questions,” says Lys. “They
will be trained in how to book a transaction, but they don’t know how to
look at financial statements and answer whether this company is doing
well or not and why.”
Even workers in creative fields may need
to make business decisions that affect the bottom line. “One of my
clients was a photographer who wound up working for a photo agency,”
says Paul McDonald, senior executive director at staffing firm Robert
Half. As this person advanced, he wound up working more with the
agency’s clients, McDonald says. “And all of a sudden he was involved in
the finances and budgeting of the entire company.”
Top business skills and their average pay boost:
- Contract Negotiation: +5%
- Financial Analysis: +4%
Wrangling New Tech
It’s hardly news that hard-core tech
folks—coders, IT managers, server administrators—have a major edge when
it comes to valued job skills. A LinkedIn analysis
of the most in-demand skills for 2016, for instance, found that 19 of
the top 25 were technology-related, with the top of the list dominated
by cutting-edge areas such as cloud computing, software development for
mobile devices, and online security.
But IT skills are only a minor part of
the story, says LinkedIn spokesman Joseph Roualdes: “Tech is in demand
across nearly every industry.”
Most employers favor technical skills
specific to the field, notes Katie Bardaro, PayScale’s vice president of
data analytics. Just within human resources, for example, a separate
PayScale analysis found that workers who can use the popular Workday
software are paid 9.6% more than their peers. Those in health care earn
8.5% more if well versed in Epic software, which helps companies manage
electronic health care records. Marketers, meanwhile, must navigate
search engine behavior and customer analytics.
Not sure what matters most in your field?
Ask your manager what technical skills are missing from your team, says
Robert Half’s McDonald.
Top tech skills and their average pay boost:
- Search Engine Marketing: +5%
- Customer Service Metrics: +4.3%
- SAP Material Management: +3.9%
Strategic Thinking
If you right-brain types are starting to
feel discouraged, take note: Some of the most sought-after skills have
nothing to do with science and technology. Two of the 10 most valued
skills involve high-level thinking and organization: strategic project
management and strategic planning. “Strategy is about understanding the
business purpose of a job rather than just the tasks of a job,” says
Boston-area recruiter David Hayes.
And the higher you go, the more valuable strategic
thinking becomes. Both “strategy development” and “business strategy”
are skills that set executives apart, for instance. Moreover, even
within that elite stratum, workers with those skills earn 9.1% and 8.2%,
respectively, more than those without.
Top strategy skills and their average pay boost:
- Strategic Planning: +4.3%
- Business Analysis: +3.8%
Download a pdf copy of HOW TO GET FREE MONEY IN YOUR MAILBOX TO start a business, finance your education...