According to specialized recruiting firm 24 Seven, beauty companies are bringing many functions once outsourced to external firms in-house, adding new positions to their staff. Companies are looking for hard-to-find, specialized talent as well as high-demand, digital-focused professionals. Here are some talent areas that are particularly hot right now.

Emerging media – Anything around emerging media and digital marketing is white hot. Despite the lackluster economy, jobs in this sector realize almost no unemployment. That’s because there is a shortage of talent to fill all the open roles. In fact, according to 24 Seven’s 2012 Salary Survey & Job Market Report, executives polled stated that in their organizations, digital talent is most in demand and most challenging to recruit. Most sought after talent right now runs the gamut from strategic development and program execution, to backend analysis, including all functional areas and levels of social media, digital and online marketing, e-commerce, CRM and web analytics.

Customer Experience – Beauty brands are investing in roles that improve the shopping experience for consumers both in-store and online. In-store is under particular pressure to compete and win against other brands on shelf. This is driving demand for talent with proven experience to innovate package design, in-store displays, visual merchandising and store design.

Highly-specialized, niche pedigrees — There’s been an increase in demand for extremely focused, category-specific expertise. For example, it’s not unusual for a beauty brand to compile a detailed talent profile for a dream candidate, for example, a 20-year fragrance veteran with prestige brand experience who has an MBA and a proven leadership track record for launching new products in emerging markets. Today’s most sought after candidate profile invariably includes consistent innovation with strategic leadership. That’s because although beauty fads may come and go, one trend is here to stay: Competition to innovate, competition to win at shelf and competition for new customers will always drive the beauty industry’s insatiable appetite for proven, game-changing talent.