ChatGPT Prompts for HR: 40 Prompts by Task, With the Rules

HR is the one function where a careless prompt can be a legal event. A job description drafted by a model is useful; an employee's performance notes pasted into a free account is a data disclosure; a model's ranking of candidates is a regulated decision in four states and New York City. The forty prompts below are organized by HR task and each carries three markers: P where no personal data about an identifiable person should go into the prompt, L where the output needs legal review before use, and H where a named human must sign off because the output touches a decision about a person.

The prompt lists that rank for this search are vendor pages from 2023 and 2024 with no data rules and no reference to the laws that have since taken effect. In SHRM's December 2025 survey of 1,908 HR professionals, 39% of organizations used AI in HR and 49% had an AI use policy, so most HR teams using these tools are doing so without a written rule. The markers here are that rule in miniature. The prompts work in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini; use the company plan, not a personal account.

The three markers and the one rule

• P: no personal data. Nothing that identifies an employee, candidate or their health, pay, performance or protected characteristics goes into the prompt. Describe the situation in general terms or use a placeholder. Removing a name is not enough if the details identify the person.
• L: legal review. The output is a document with legal effect, such as a policy, a contract clause or a compliance statement, and counsel reviews it before it is used. Models cite laws that do not exist and quote statutes that have changed; several in this list changed in 2025 and 2026.
• H: human sign-off. The output could influence a decision about a person. A named person makes the decision from the primary evidence, and in Illinois, California, New York City and, from January 1, 2027, Colorado, the rules in our AI hiring laws by state table may apply.

The one rule: use the company's approved plan whose terms exclude training on your data. Microsoft states that Copilot prompts are not used to train its foundation models; Anthropic states API inputs are deleted within 30 days by default; consumer plans across vendors generally allow training unless the user opts out. Our AI use policy template has the data tiers these markers assume.

Job descriptions and postings

1. Draft from a role brief. "Write a job description for a [title] reporting to the [manager title] at a [industry] company of [size]. The role's five main responsibilities are: [list]. Required: [list]. Preferred: [list]. Use plain language, avoid gendered or age-coded words, and keep requirements to those necessary to do the job. Return the description with a separate list of any requirement you think is not necessary and why." Marker: none. Our job description template gives the structure.
2. Strip unnecessary requirements. "Here is a job description: [paste]. List every requirement that a strong candidate could lack and still do the job well. For each, say whether it is likely to exclude candidates by age, disability, caregiving history or socioeconomic background, and suggest a replacement." Marker: none.
3. Pay transparency wording. "Draft the salary disclosure for a posting in [state or city] for a role paying [range]. State the range, the basis for position within it, and the benefits summary in a neutral tone." Marker: L. Pay transparency laws differ by state and have changed; counsel checks the jurisdiction.
4. Internal posting version. "Rewrite this external posting as an internal opportunity announcement for current employees, keeping requirements identical and adding the application process: [paste]." Marker: none.
5. Interview question bank. "Write eight structured interview questions for a [title], each tied to one of these competencies: [list]. For each, give what a strong, adequate and weak answer would contain. Exclude any question about protected characteristics, health, family or age." Marker: none.

Recruiting communications

6. Rejection after interview. "Write a rejection email to a candidate who interviewed for [title]. Thank them for their time, say the decision, do not give reasons, and invite them to apply to future roles. Warm, four sentences." Marker: P, H. The decision is a human's; the model writes the message.
7. Rejection with AI disclosure. "Write the sentence we add to rejection emails in [jurisdiction] disclosing that an automated tool was used in screening and how to request more information." Marker: L. Colorado requires this within 30 days of an adverse outcome from January 1, 2027; Illinois and New York City have their own notice rules.
8. Offer letter cover note. "Write a two-paragraph cover email for an offer letter to a candidate for [title] starting [date], warm and specific about why we are glad they accepted the interview process, without stating terms, which are in the attached letter." Marker: P.
9. Candidate update during a slow process. "Write a short email to candidates still in process for [title] explaining the timeline has moved by [period] because [general reason], with the new expected date." Marker: none.
10. Interview scheduling and preparation note. "Write the preparation note we send candidates before a [format] interview for [title]: who they will meet by role, the format, how long, what to bring, and how to request an accommodation." Marker: none. The accommodation line is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Onboarding

11. Thirty-sixty-ninety plan. "Draft a 30-60-90 day plan for a new [title] whose main objectives in the first quarter are: [list]. For each period give three outcomes, the people to meet by role, and how success is measured." Marker: none. Our 30-60-90 day plan template has the format.
12. First-week schedule. "Build a first-week schedule for a new [title] on a [remote/hybrid/office] team, with system setup on day one, a meeting with each of these roles: [list], one training block per day, and time for independent reading." Marker: none.
13. Welcome message from the manager. "Write a welcome message a manager can personalize for a new team member, covering what the team does, how we communicate, the first-week plan and who to ask for help. Leave placeholders for the new hire's name and start date." Marker: none.
14. Onboarding survey. "Write a ten-question survey for new hires at the 30-day mark covering clarity of role, manager support, tools and access, training, and belonging, using a five-point scale plus one open question." Marker: none.
15. Buddy guide. "Write a one-page guide for employees assigned as an onboarding buddy: what the role is and is not, a check-in schedule for the first month, and ten questions new hires commonly have." Marker: none.

Policies and handbooks

16. Policy first draft. "Draft a [topic] policy for a US employer with [number] employees in [states]. Structure: purpose, scope, definitions, rules, procedure, responsibilities, review date. Use plain language and mark every statement about legal requirements with [VERIFY] so counsel can check it." Marker: L.
17. Plain-language rewrite. "Rewrite this policy section at an eighth-grade reading level without changing its meaning. Flag any sentence where simplification would change the meaning: [paste]." Marker: L if the policy has legal effect.
18. Gap check against a list. "Here is our employee handbook table of contents: [paste]. Compare it with the topics a US employer handbook usually covers and list what is missing, grouped by whether the gap is a legal exposure or a clarity issue. Do not cite specific statutes." Marker: L.
19. Policy FAQ. "Write ten questions employees are likely to ask about this policy with short answers drawn only from the policy text. If the policy does not answer a question, say so rather than inventing an answer: [paste]." Marker: none.
20. Acknowledgment form. "Write an acknowledgment form for the [policy name] dated [date] confirming the employee has read it, understands who to ask, and knows where it is kept." Marker: none. Our monitoring policy template and AI use policy template include worked examples.

Employee communications

21. Change announcement. "Write an all-staff announcement about [change], covering what is changing, when, why, what it means for employees, what does not change, and where to ask questions. Direct tone, no corporate phrasing, under 300 words." Marker: none.
22. Benefits enrollment reminder. "Write three reminder emails for open enrollment closing on [date]: four weeks out, one week out, and the final day. Each states the deadline, what happens if an employee does nothing, and where to enroll." Marker: none.
23. Difficult-news message. "Draft a message to the team about [a departure, a restructuring, a missed target]. State the facts, acknowledge the effect, say what happens next and when they will hear more. No euphemisms." Marker: P, H. The facts are stated by a person who has checked them.
24. Translate tone, not content. "Here is a message from leadership. Rewrite it for front-line staff who read it on a phone during a shift, keeping every fact and removing every abstraction: [paste]." Marker: none.
25. Town hall question themes. "Here are the anonymous questions submitted for the town hall. Group them into themes, count each theme, and write one neutral summary question per theme: [paste]." Marker: P. Strip any question that identifies its author or a named colleague before pasting.

Performance and development

26. Draft from manager notes. "Turn these notes into a performance review draft with sections for outcomes, strengths, development areas and goals. Use only what is in the notes; where a section lacks evidence, write 'needs an example' rather than filling it: [notes with the employee's name replaced by a placeholder]." Marker: P, H. The manager supplies the evidence and owns every sentence; see our AI in performance reviews guide for the legal line.
27. Consistency check across a team. "Here are [number] review drafts with names removed. For each, count the specific outcomes cited, the personality descriptors used, and the word count. Flag reviews that are much shorter, vaguer or more personality-focused than the others." Marker: P, H.
28. Goal rewriting. "Rewrite these goals so each has a measurable outcome, a date and a stated reason it matters to the team: [paste goals, no names]." Marker: none.
29. Development plan. "Draft a development plan for an employee in a [title] role who wants to move toward [target role] in [period]. Include skills to build, how to build each, and how progress will be shown." Marker: P.
30. Feedback phrasing. "Here is feedback a manager wants to give about a recurring problem: [general description]. Suggest three ways to say it that are specific, describe the effect, and ask for a change, without judging the person." Marker: P.

Data, surveys and reporting

31. Engagement survey design. "Draft a 15-item engagement survey using a five-point agreement scale across role clarity, manager, recognition, growth, workload and intent to stay, plus two open questions. Write each item so it measures one thing." Marker: none.
32. Open-text theming. "Here are open-text survey comments with identifying details removed. Group them into themes, give the count and one representative quote per theme, and list any theme that appears in fewer than three comments separately so it is not over-weighted: [paste]." Marker: P.
33. Metric definitions. "Write precise definitions for these HR metrics as we will use them in the quarterly report, including the formula and the data source: turnover rate, voluntary turnover, time to fill, offer acceptance rate, absence rate." Marker: none. Our HR metrics guide has the standard formulas to check against.
34. Report narrative from a table. "Here is a table of HR metrics for the last four quarters. Write a one-page narrative that states what changed, by how much, and what the plausible causes are, labeling each cause as evidence-based or speculation: [paste aggregate figures only]." Marker: P. Aggregates, not individual records.
35. Spreadsheet formula help. "In Excel, I have hire dates in column B and termination dates in column C, blank if still employed. Write a formula for tenure in months as of today, and a formula for the count of employees who left within 12 months of hire." Marker: none.

Employee relations and investigations

36. Investigation plan. "Outline an investigation plan for a workplace complaint of [general category, no names] at a US employer: who should investigate, the order of interviews, what documents to collect, how to preserve confidentiality, and what the written outcome should contain." Marker: P, L, H.
37. Interview question set. "Write open, non-leading questions for an investigation interview with a witness to [general description of the allegation]. Avoid questions that assume the outcome." Marker: P, L.
38. Accommodation process description. "Write the process description we give employees for requesting a workplace accommodation: how to ask, what information we may request, how long we take, and who decides. Do not describe specific medical conditions." Marker: L. The interactive process under the Americans with Disabilities Act has requirements counsel will check.

No prompt in this section takes the facts of an actual case. The details of a complaint identify the people in it even without names, and a vendor's server is a third party for privilege purposes.

Learning and training

39. Training session plan. "Design a 60-minute training session on [topic] for [audience], with learning objectives, a timed agenda, one hands-on exercise, and three questions to check understanding." Marker: none. Our AI training for employees guide applies this to AI itself.
40. Scenario exercises. "Write five realistic workplace scenarios for a training on [topic], each with a decision point and a model answer explaining the right action and why. Keep every character fictional." Marker: none.

Six habits that make every prompt better

1. Give the role, the audience and the length. "For front-line staff reading on a phone, under 200 words" changes the output more than any clever phrasing.
2. Paste your own examples. A past job description or announcement in your voice gets a draft in your voice.
3. Ask for the gaps, not just the draft. "List what you had to assume" and "mark every legal claim [VERIFY]" turn the model into a checklist for your own review.
4. Forbid invention. "If the source does not answer the question, say so" prevents the confident filler that models produce when they lack information.
5. Aggregate before you paste. Counts and averages carry the meaning; rows carry the people.
6. Keep a shared prompt library. A team document of prompts that worked, with their markers, is the fastest way to raise the floor. The forty above are a starting file.

Key takeaways

• Forty prompts across ten HR tasks, each marked P (no personal data in the prompt), L (legal review before use) or H (human sign-off because a decision about a person is involved).
• Use the company plan whose terms exclude training on your data. Microsoft and Anthropic document their terms; consumer plans generally train unless the user opts out.
• 39% of organizations used AI in HR and 49% had an AI use policy in SHRM's December 2025 survey of 1,908 HR professionals.
• Job descriptions, onboarding plans, communications, survey design and training plans are unmarked: no personal data, no legal effect, no decision.
• Rejections, difficult news, performance drafts and consistency checks carry P and H: the model writes the words, a person makes the decision from the evidence.
• Policies, pay transparency wording, AI disclosure sentences and accommodation processes carry L because the law differs by state and changed in 2025 and 2026.
• Investigation prompts never take the facts of a real case: details identify people without names, and a vendor's server is a third party for privilege.
• Ask the model for its assumptions and to mark legal claims [VERIFY]; forbid invention; paste aggregates, not rows.