That’s an interesting observation that calls for one of my long wordy answers that few will have the patience or desire to read. 
Most who have responded to your posts have been in the business for decades. I was an art/creative director in various capacities for over 30 years before going out on my own.
When I hired interns or newly graduated designers, I would ask them about their skills in the tools they would be using — usually Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. When beginners applied for positions in web design, animation, videography, copy editing, public relations, etc., I asked them similar questions about the relevant tools in those fields, too.
For any designer further along than Junior Designer, there was usually no need to ask except in a cursory way about their software preferences. I could tell their skill levels from the quality of their general design work. When their work indicated a deficiency, I wouldn’t invite them in for an interview.
If I were a building contractor, asking a professional carpenter with five years of experience if he knew how to use a saw and a hammer would be silly. He wouldn’t be hired if he showed photos of planks he had sawn and nails he had driven with the expectation that I’d be impressed.
Photoshop is a basic tool, like a saw or a hammer. Any graphic designer at any level beyond intern or junior designer should know her way around them without having to point it out in a portfolio.
Judging from your quote, you might think that typography, branding, and software skills are separate things and that designers might specialize in each. That might be true of branding, but all professional graphic designers must possess considerable expertise in typography, production, and various software skills that regularly change throughout their careers.
In the future, you will need to be an expert in typography, basic software applications (such as the Adobe CC apps), and a few niche-specific software applications, no matter what part of the graphic design field you eventually specialize in.
I have some difficulty placing myself into the position of a beginning designer; it was too long ago. You’re in that position now, so you need to demonstrate your proficiency in fundamental software applications to be hired as a beginner. In the future, you’ll need to become an expert in using typography and various software applications, or you’ll hit a dead end.
I don’t know any professional designers who make a living specializing in general Photoshop abilities. I know a few illustrators who use Photoshop extensively and in novel ways to create illustrations, but their marketable skill is illustration, not Photoshop.
