Here are the AI prompts making HR pros’ lives easier

As more professionals adopt AI, industry leaders are sharing what their favorite prompts are to boost productivity and efficiency in their line of work.

HR folks specifically are in the midst of all things AI, navigating what vendors they might want to work with to help their employees revolutionize the way they work. But while they figure that out, they need AI prompts that can help them get through their everyday tasks. 

That’s why we spoke with several people in HR roles to compile a list of their favorite AI prompts, including how the prompts help them and why they’ve become favorites. 

Here’s what they shared. 

Arianny Mercedes, founder and principal consultant at Revamped:

“I need to develop a career advancement plan for [job role, years of experience, career aspirations, etc.]. What key components should I incorporate?”

Why it works: This prompt offers insights into essential elements of a successful career development plan. It ensures comprehensive and strategic planning, aligning with industry standards and organizational objectives to enhance individual performance. By defining clear development pathways, it helps the organization retain and develop talent, ultimately boosting employee satisfaction and productivity.

Linda Ho, chief people officer at Seismic:

I enjoy using prompts that involve adopting a persona. For example, I might take on the role of an Emotional Intelligence professor or a specific individual like Josh Bersin and ask AI to simulate how they would respond. I also like to play devil’s advocate with the responses. For example, I’ll ask AI to tell me the contrarian viewpoint or the drawbacks to a certain approach or tactic it provides.

Why it works: Using AI to simulate responses or solutions from specific perspectives (or data sets) ensures that responses are highly relevant and targeted. Prompting AI to use an “emotional intelligence” scope will elicit the best response for a people leader, where empathy and connection are a top priority. Additionally, adopting a “devil’s advocate” approach to these AI-generated responses helps verify their accuracy and broadens your perspective by considering alternative viewpoints and proposition potential questions or pushback. This approach can be incredibly valuable when managing workplace issues such as employee conflicts or implementing new policies or tools.

Collen Clark, founder and attorney of Schmidt & Clark LLP:

“Generate a set of interview questions for a [position] role, ensuring compliance with EEO guidelines and relevant state laws.”

Why it works: This prompt has been a game-changer for our recruitment process, saving us time and reducing the risk of unintended bias in our interviews. It has streamlined our hiring process, reduced the risk of legal issues and assisted us in attracting top talent. It’s been an invaluable tool in our recruitment arsenal, and I’m looking forward to seeing how GenAI evolves and improves HR workflows.

Jon Morgan, CEO and editor-in-chief at Venture Smarter:

“Write a compelling job description for a [position name] role, targeting high-performing [skills] candidates, and emphasizing our unique company culture.”

Why it works: This might seem simple, but crafting a description that grabs attention and gets the right people in the door is an art. Traditionally, this could take hours of brainstorming and revisions. Now, with GenAI, I can give some basic details about the role, the skills we need and a few keywords about our company culture. In minutes, it spits out a draft that’s already pretty darn good. It saves us a ton of time — we’re talking about a good 70% reduction in crafting time for job descriptions. But more importantly, the quality has jumped. The descriptions are clearer, and more engaging, and they do a much better job of highlighting what makes Venture Smarter special. This translates directly into results. We’re seeing a 25% increase in the number of qualified applicants coming through the pipeline. That’s a significant number when you’re dealing with hundreds of applications per role. GenAI frees up our HR team to focus on the real human touch — interviewing, evaluating and making those crucial hiring decisions. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Giota Gavala, media relations coordinator at TalentLMS:

“Act like a content manager who writes a brief for a writer. The topic of the article is ‘How to build stronger teams with soft skills training.’ Generate a suggested structure. For each section, include some bullets of what the writer can write for each section. Also, write a meta title and meta description that will include the focus keyword, ‘soft skills training programs.'”

Why it works: As a media relations coordinator at TalentLMS, most of my days are filled with syncing up bylines for media publications, all written by our skilled in-house and freelance writers. Each month, I put together 10-12 briefs for them. Although I’m not actually a content manager, I include it in the prompt because I’ve noticed that ChatGPT delivers better results.

Emily Lee, senior director of HR at Deep Genomics:

“What are key essential functions for XX role in xx industry; how can we give feedback for XX role that is having trouble operating as a leader (or insert what the gap is there); what are team building activities for a dispersed workforce that are looking to build connections (or insert the goal of the get together).”

Why it works: In all of these situations, GenAI supports a shortened processing time when I or my team are out looking for information or trying to build from scratch. In many of these prompts, while the information received may not all be relevant, I’ve found it expedites the more tactical and tedious steps and allows us to focus on the value-added part of the work — coaching, guiding and really aligning the work and our HR programs with our organizational needs.

Callie Lavit, recruiting and hiring manager at Atom.com:

“I need a 2 paragraph job post for a (insert role title). This candidate ideally will be located in (enter location). This candidate should have (x) years of experience with the following skills: (insert skill 1) (insert skill 2) (insert skill 3). Also, add to the last paragraph: Please ensure to submit your resume and cover letter when applying.”

Why it works: This prompt has helped me cut down my time for writing a job post from 30 minutes to 30 seconds. It has also made the job posts more targeted, which helps attract candidates who are very well suited to the role. It has helped me hire many fantastic employees, especially during a time crunch. Last year, when we received funding and needed to hire immediately, this prompt allowed me to post about 12 job postings in just a few hours. So, it reduced my workload and allowed me to focus more on tasks I actually enjoy like interviewing, which need me to be more intentional and “human.”

Angela Surra, principal benefits expert at Mitratech:

“Act as an infinite expert in HR, compliance and labor laws, offering clear, concise and current information and avoiding legal advice. Your specialty is researching laws, rules and regulations at the state and federal levels for employers to help them understand and adhere to their compliance obligations, duties and responsibilities.

#Context

The target audience when researching is businesses in the United States, noting that some may have employees working remotely or at another location in different states than where the employer is domiciled. Rely on and search for information from the following sources:

Official federal or state .gov websites, https://codes.findlaw.com, https://www.law.cornell.edu 

#Response Criteria

When receiving the query ‘I need to research something,’ reply, ‘I am happy to help! What can I research for you?’ Prioritize clear and concise answers while demonstrating trustworthiness in an unbiased and neutral way, making complex topics accessible and avoiding jargon. Avoid speculation and assumptions and always provide citations in responses. Uses phrases like ‘Here’s what I found’ or ‘According to recent updates’ to present information. Focus on being informative, approachable and user-friendly, ensuring practical and relevant advice. Include a summary of employer requirements, compliance obligations and responsibilities. Detail any employer and employee requirements if available.”

Why it works: One of the most versatile and beneficial [things about this] is the ability to make custom GPTs through OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Creating a custom GPT (requiring a paid subscription to ChatGPT) builds upon writing a prompt into a set of custom and detailed instructions that live within it, eliminating the need to start every conversation with a prompt. I created a custom GPT to streamline my research efforts and use it daily to find relevant codes, rules or laws quickly. My custom instructions can also be used as a prompt with a stern reminder to always have an expert human in the loop to fact-check everything.

Karen Cosentino, chief people officer at Barge Design Solutions:

“What are the primary duties of [job role]. What are the top three to five attributes of a successful [job/role]. Build an event plan or help me create an agenda for X, Y, Z. What are common structures for X, Y, Z. What are the top recruitment market trends in X states. Please help me simplify …. safety and compliance guidelines (for example).”

Why it works: I use AI as a jumping-off point to gather my thoughts and information on a specific topic. I also use AI daily to create quick planning guides, make checklists and develop job descriptions when needed in a much shorter amount of time.

Darrell Hunt, principal talent acquisition partner at BambooHR:

“Imagine you are a hiring manager at a rapidly growing tech company. What are the top three qualities you look for in a candidate, and how do you assess these qualities during the interview?”

Why it works: I like it because it provides insight into a candidate’s understanding of key hiring attributes and their application in the recruitment process.