The Value of Prompting Skills

Lara Fleck (), Dominik Becker (), Marie-Christine Fregin (), Andries de Grip, Harald Pfeifer () and Kathrin Weis ()
Additional contact information
Lara Fleck: ROA, Maastricht University
Dominik Becker: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB)
Marie-Christine Fregin: ROA, Maastricht University
Harald Pfeifer: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB)
Kathrin Weis: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB)

No 18871, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, prompting skills are becoming increasingly relevant in the workplace. Using a discrete choice experiment (DCE), we asked decision-makers on hiring in German firms in all sectors of the economy are asked to choose between job applicants with different skills bundles. Applicant profiles vary in five attributes: prompting skills, occupation-specific skills gaps, social skills, gender and salary expectations. We find that prompting skills increase applicants’ hiring probability by 4 percent and employers are willing to pay 2 percent above the average salary of a skilled worker in their firm. This WTP is modest compared to the WTP for having matching occupation-specific skills or high social skills. However, in large firms as well as firms that have adopted or are planning to adopt AI, high prompting skills increase applicant’s hiring probability by 9 percent. Moreover, prompting skills have some leverage to balance out low to intermediate social skills. Yet, higher prompting skills do not compensate for occupation-specific skills gaps. Instead of such a compensatory effect, the demand for prompting skills seems to upgrade skills requirements in jobs.

Keywords: prompting skills; generative AI; discrete choice experiment; willingness to pay; skills complementarities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 M51 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18871.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18871

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().