ChatGPT Starter Kit for HR Leaders

When we speak to HR leaders across the globe, there is one topic that they are all intrigued by: AI, and specifically the tools available and how we can use them to their full potential in the HR field. Aside from the questions surrounding potential privacy concerns, what we hear most from leaders involves how they and others can best utilize this new technology to empower or elevate the productivity of their teams.

We are just ‘touching the tip of the iceberg’ when it comes to understanding the implications and possibilities of generative AI’s role in HR. What I do know is that most HR leaders are scrambling to incorporate AI into their strategies without fully knowing how.

Brett Underhill, Director, Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development at Taboola

There are several AI language models available in the market today. Some belong to big companies like Google and Microsoft, others are open source. There is Google's Bard AI, Chatsonic, Jasperchat, Legal Robot, to name just a few.

One of the most talked about AI tools out there, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has the potential to be an excellent resource for all HR leaders, with its most significant benefit being felt by those looking to overcome budget, headcount, or resource constraints. Given the notoriety of the software, we thought it might be helpful to compile a Chat GPT Starter Kit that HR leaders can referrence as they begin their exploration of the technology.

The Limitations

A word of caution before we get started: ChatGPT, like any other AI language model, has limitations and can provide incorrect information, so it is important to sense-check the data it gives you. It is constantly learning from the text data provided by users and the results it finds online, which can make it prone to misinformation.

Most importantly, remember that the output is not necessarily the “truth”; it can be biased, lack common sense, and contain grammatical errors and typos. These tools are essentially a robot and may exhibit limitations in understanding context and may access outdated data. For example, if you are using this technology to address matters with legal considerations, bear in mind that most of the program data was uploaded before 2022. Therefore, changes in labor, privacy, or employment laws will require some extra research on your part, in addition to the options offered by ChatGPT.

To offer a balanced perspective Sara DeBella, CPO at Inovalon shared her view on the future of the tool:

In terms of ChatGPT or other forms of generative AI, so far I have not seen use cases that help improve HR teams lacking manpower per se. The reason for this, given the current capabilities of generative AI, an organization still needs an SME who can valid and review the details, outputs, etc.
I have seen, and used, generative AI to supplement, augment or enhance existing teams or processes. Some of the use cases I leveraged include using ChatGPT to rewrite job descriptions to remove gendered language, create a performance improvement plan, update a handbook or policy and create effective interview questions. Overall, I think it’s a really interesting technology with a lot of potential use cases but has limitations and need refinement before it can be widely leveraged in HR, particularly for teams without the subject matter expertise to validate and review.

While we agree that these technologies have limitations and will take time to develop, we find it an exciting tool to use, and we will illustrate one of its potential uses below.

We also want to point out that ChatGPT's privacy policy makes it clear that it records your conversations and shares the logs with other companies and its AI trainers. When someone types “confidential company” or “personal information” into the dialogue box, it's recorded and saved on ChatGPT's servers. Through training and policy, employees should be reminded not to share private data on open-source AI platforms and of the risks of using such AI tools.

As long as these limitations are considered, we are good to go.

Interacting With ChatGPT

To begin with, the most effective way to use this technology is to approach it as if you were asking a question to a friend. If you want specific insight or answers, you must ask specific questions. If you ask vague or general questions, you will get a vague or general answer.

While OpenAI and most other chat technologies do not have exact character limits, most will cut off responses around 500 words or 4,000 characters. Should your question require more than 500 words, the sentence may be cut off mid-response. One way to get around that word count will be to type in the prompt “Go On” or “Continue”. Another way will be to upgrade from the program’s free version, but that will cost you!

Whether you are a one-person HR function, or a leader of a team, this is an opportunity to bring together people in your organization and get them to brainstorm on the work they are doing, the questions they must answer, and whether they feel that AI might be able to make them more efficient.

To help guide you through how you could use ChatGPT in HR let me walk you through an example query and share the responses generated.

Give ChatGPT Its Identity

Start by setting the stage for your question by providing the Chat GPT an “identity” from which to answer. As we have already mentioned, the more specific and in-depth you provide information for the program, the more precise the insight shared back will be. The examples below are what I placed in ChatGPT to position the AI to be responding either as a Talent Acquisition expert, Learning and Development leader, or a C&B specialist. Giving the bot an identity will make it respond to further questions using the given persona.

• “You will act as a talent acquisition expert who has a strong understanding of talent demands in large, global, matrix organizations. You possess an in-depth knowledge of strategies to increase talent attraction, branding, marketing, and acquisition. You possess a strong understanding of IT and technical positions within an aerospace company. You have a strong understanding of the AI space. You possess the essential skills a great recruiter has, including technical, interpersonal, and communication abilities. If you have questions about my prompts or if I’m unclear, please ask me further questions and be mindful of giving unbiased answers and suggestions.”
• “You will act as a Learning and Development leader with a background utilizing Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Kirkpatrick Model. You possess highly refined skills in developing micro-learning or nano-learning programs. You have broad and deep knowledge about creating engaging training for employees and managers, creating learning strategies to answer general learning and development questions. You possess all essential skills a knowledgeable Learning and Development specialist has. If you have questions about my prompts or if I’m unclear in any way, please ask me further questions and be mindful of giving unbiased answers and suggestions.”
• “Act as a Compensation and Benefits specialist, and you possess the essential skills of both a financial expert and a compensation and benefits specialist. You will include the most important criteria necessary for demonstration of a history of success in top global multinational companies known for best-practice HR and innovation in Total Rewards strategies and programs. This includes deep knowledge about both micro and macroeconomics, overarching finance lingo, and great insights on creating total rewards processes that help engage employees and drive organizations' long-term success. You also have broad knowledge about creating career-level frameworks and can easily explain what makes a good career framework from a bad one. If you have questions about my prompts or if I’m unclear in any way, please ask me further questions and be mindful of unbiased answers and suggestions.”

Did you notice that we are also giving the bot permission to seek clarification and ask questions back, by including the last prompt in the examples above? If you have questions about my prompts or if I’m unclear in any way, please ask me further questions and be mindful of giving unbiased answers and suggestions.

1st Input

For the purpose of this guide to ChatGPT, we will start our interaction with the first option above; the ChatGPT identity will be a talent acquisition and recruitment expert with a strong understanding of IT and technical positions within an aerospace company.

Ask ChatGPT to Answer a Specific Problem

Now that the persona has been set, we can begin our exploration of its applicability for our organization. The example below will provide you with ideas on how to refine an initial request to become more specific and fully utilize the capacities of ChatGPT.

You will see that we started with a broad sweeping statement and then refined our queries step by step. This helps the AI to give responses that are more tangible for us (after doing further checking internally of course!).

Our objective for this query is to create a job description for a Total Rewards leader in an aerospace company that requires US Security Clearance.

2nd Input

“What questions can I ask the hiring manager to capture the most important traits or abilities necessary for a Total Rewards leader in an aerospace company with US security clearance?”

ChatGPT provided me with a total of ten questions to help me gain a comprehensive understanding of the critical traits and abilities required for this position. I now want to take this a step further by creating a position description incorporating the traits and skillset mentioned above:

3rd Input

“Utilizing the traits, industry, and security clearance above, please develop a position description that includes the responsibilities, qualifications, skills, and experience needed for the Total Rewards Leader role at ChrisCo. Include cultural considerations such as a bias for action, an entrepreneurial spirit, and an ability to operate in a fluid environment. If you have questions about my prompts or if I’m unclear in any way, please ask me further questions and be mindful of giving unbiased suggestions. Is there anything else you need to be able to create this?”

I now have a clear position description taking into account responsibilities for this particular role, qualifications and skills required, as well as any cultural considerations. Now I want to know where the best place would be to advertise this role:

4th Input

“Please choose the most successful strategy and cost-effective channels for advertising the Total Rewards Leader position. You can include, but are not limited to, job boards, social media, conferences, and similar sources. You can also provide less traditional options that may uncover additional candidates qualified for the role.”

ChatGPT provided me with twelve advertising strategies and suggested I combine these to reach a wide range of candidates. Next, I would like help to create the communication for reaching out to potential candidates:

5th Input

“Create an outreach to use when sourcing candidates for the position description above. The role will intersect with the talent acquisition function, the C-Suite, and potentially the Board. The role will need an understanding of aerospace regulations. The role will have growth opportunities in multiple channels across the organization. We operate as a start-up, we are very pacey, and we are globally dispersed across APAC, EMEA, and the Americas. We do serious work, but we do not take ourselves seriously, so make the outreach less formal and with a sense of humor.”

I love the sense of humour the bot injected here. Before inviting candidates to interview, I need my team to screen the potential leaders:

6th Input

“Please create five pre-screening questions that candidates for the Total Rewards Leader position can answer when applying for this role with ChrisCo. Please focus on making them easy but providing value in terms of the candidates’ alignment with the position requirements.”

As requested, ChatGPT provided five pre-screening questions to help me identify candidates who not only possess the necessary skills and experiences but also align with our unique start-up culture and the specific demands of this Total Rewards position. Finally, it would be great to have a complete guide to how to best run the interview for my selected shortlist:

7th and Final Input

"Please create a behavior-based interview template that an engineering manager can utilize for the initial interview with candidates for the Total Rewards Leader position. Please include basic questions such as notice period. The interview should not take more than 30 minutes to conduct."

Job done!

Finally

As shown above, AI language models like ChatGPT offers a world of opportunity for HR Leaders who are willing to invest in creating a thoughtful, focused approach to using the technology to make their jobs easier. While there are certain limitations to consider in terms of privacy, biased information and lack of logical thinking, the language model technology is here to stay and the HR leaders we have spoken to agree. Although AI technology will not replace us, the people who can use it to their full advantage may.

We hope this ChatGPT HR Starter Kit will help you get your experience off on the right foot. We will leave you with a list of ten useful prompts to take back to your organization. Happy testing!

Ten Useful Prompts For HR Leaders

1. We want to foster a culture of continuous improvement and growth for our employees. Provide us with strategies and tactics to promote a more robust learning culture within our organization.
2. We want to ensure our employees are set up for success in their roles. Please help us identify and map out the critical competencies required for ___ roles in our organization and suggest ways to develop these competencies.
3. We want to develop a one-hour training session, with accompanying training materials, that will provide line managers with the necessary skill set to complete a more unbiased and effective performance assessment. Design a comprehensive training approach to facilitate that outcome.
4. We would like to measure the effectiveness of our Leadership and Development programs but are unsure which metrics would give us the best assessment. Provide us with a meaningful and actionable set of learning metrics and KPIs that can help us measure success.
5. We are working to combat low engagement levels in our learning and development programs. Please propose innovative engagement strategies for adult learners, such as gamification or social learning, which should increase learner participation and program completion rates.
6. We are about to have a difficult conversation with an employee who has a problem with ___. We expect the employee to be upset when they receive this information. Please provide us with two versions of a script we can use for this conversation.
7. We want to develop an early talent recruitment strategy, to attract 20 interns and new graduates over the next six months. Develop a strategy and accompanying implementation measures that will provide us with the best opportunity to identify and hire these employees from schools across the Southeast.
8. We are a ___ person company in the ___ industry. Create a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that accurately showcases the unique traits of our current workforce and opportunities within our organization. Create a two-day, interactive workshop that would allow our business leaders to share this EVP with their employees and present it through daily actions.
9. We need to deliver constructive feedback to an individual who has shown some improvement on their performance improvement plan but still needs to improve further to maintain employment. Create a script that will allow us to deliver this feedback in a manner that demonstrates empathy while increasing the likelihood of a positive outcome.
10. We need to create a comprehensive onboarding process that allows new hires to acclimate to our ___ employee ___ organization more quickly and efficiently while also providing increased employee retention opportunities. Please provide us with theoretical and practical examples that could be included in the process.