# AI for HR Professionals (Private Sector) Course (Self-Paced) Canonical URL: ## Overview This self-paced course takes you from your first Claude conversation to a fully configured AI workflow built for HR professionals. You’ll learn to write effective prompts, organize ongoing work with Projects, build reusable templates with Artifacts, and connect Claude to workplace tools — all using HR-specific examples, exercises, and real people operations documents. By the end, you’ll have a personalized Claude system designed around your HR role and your organization’s people priorities. HR professionals produce an enormous volume of written work: job descriptions, offer letters, performance review frameworks, policy documents, onboarding programs, and employee communications. Claude is genuinely excellent at accelerating this written work — when given the right organizational context and professional guardrails. This course teaches you to build those guardrails and apply them across the full spectrum of HR content: talent acquisition, employee relations, policy and compliance, people analytics, and program development. The course culminates in a capstone where you produce a complete HR deliverable package using your full Claude system. ## What you'll learn - Write structured prompts that produce accurate results for writing, analysis, summarization, and research - Set up and use Projects, Artifacts, Styles, and Memory to build a personalized Claude workflow - Apply advanced prompting techniques including role-based prompting, chain-of-thought reasoning, and the You Ask Me method - Connect Claude to workplace tools including Google Drive, Gmail, Excel, and PowerPoint - Apply Claude to core HR workflows including job descriptions, performance management frameworks, employee communications, manager guidance, and policy documentation - Build a complete HR Claude system and produce a capstone deliverable package ready for workplace use ## Curriculum #### Module 1: Getting Started with Claude AI - Explain how Claude works in plain language and identify the model tiers, plans, and interface - Understand the context window, how Claude processes information, and when to start new conversations - Practice your first Claude conversation using an HR-specific prompt - Identify what Claude does well, what it doesn’t, and when human judgment is essential #### Module 2: Prompting Fundamentals - Apply the five-part prompt framework: context, task, format, constraints, and examples - Write effective prompts across five use cases: writing, summarization, analysis, research, and creative problem-solving - Recognize and fix common prompting mistakes that produce vague or unusable output - Practice prompting with HR scenarios: drafting a job posting, summarizing a policy document, and writing a manager feedback script #### Module 3: Working with Files & Documents - Upload and analyze images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and documents directly in Claude - Use Claude to extract, compare, and summarize information from uploaded files - Work with HR-specific file types: position descriptions, org charts, performance review forms, and employee handbook sections - Complete a hands-on document analysis exercise using provided HR sample files #### Module 4: Projects & Knowledge Bases - Explain how Projects use custom instructions and knowledge bases to organize ongoing work - Write effective Project instructions that encode your role, audience, format preferences, and rules - Upload reference documents and understand how RAG retrieves relevant content - Create an HR Project for a talent acquisition or performance management scenario using provided sample files #### Module 5: Artifacts, Styles, Memory & Usage Management - Create reusable deliverables with Artifacts and edit them directly or through conversation - Build custom Styles that match your professional communication voice - Configure Memory to retain key context about you and your work across conversations - Apply usage management techniques to extend your plan value #### Module 6: Advanced Prompting & AI Tool Selection - Use role-based prompting, chain-of-thought reasoning, and multi-step workflows - Apply Extended Thinking, web search, and the You Ask Me technique for complex tasks - Compare Claude with ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini to choose the right tool for each task - Practice advanced prompting with HR scenarios: auditing a job description for bias, building a structured interview guide, and developing a performance improvement plan framework #### Module 7: Introduction to Claude Cowork - Explain what Cowork is and how it differs from the claude.ai chat interface - Read, write, and manage files from your desktop environment - Configure guardrails, file permissions, and network settings for safe use - Understand prompt injection risks and how to protect against them #### Module 8: Context System, Connectors & Integrations - Build foundational context files and set Global Instructions that apply to every Cowork session - Connect Claude to Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, and other workplace tools - Use Claude natively in Excel and PowerPoint with the Office add-ins - Configure your context system and connections for HR workflows, including people analytics in Excel and leadership presentations in PowerPoint #### Module 9: AI for HR — Core Workflows - Use Claude to produce bias-reviewed, level-calibrated job descriptions and structured interview guides - Draft manager coaching scripts, performance improvement plan frameworks, and corrective action documentation - Build employee communications, handbook sections, and onboarding program content - Set up HR-specific Skills and Scheduled Tasks for recurring content production - Complete a hands-on lab producing a multi-document HR content package #### Module 10: Capstone — Build Your HR Claude System - Audit your HR tasks and identify the highest-value opportunities for Claude assistance - Configure a personalized HR Claude system: Projects, context files, Styles, and connected tools - Run a complete end-to-end workflow that produces a real HR deliverable package - Create a Week 1 action plan for applying what you’ve learned to your HR role ## Instructors ### Steve Pesklo — Instructor Steve is an energetic trainer who focuses on applying technical concepts to everyday work practices. He is the founder and president of SoftLake Solutions, a company that specializes in providing data and AI applications to identify fraud for Internal Audit, Criminal Investigations, Forensic Accounting, Privacy, and Compliance. Steve brings a large amount of experience across multiple industries and government agencies. He is an expert in implementing large data analysis projects across the world, including Inland Revenue in the UK and Argentina, New Zealand, Africa and across Europe. Previously, he was the manager of Data Architecture and Data Services for a large mortgage company. He is a frequent speaker on data analytics and project management topics and speaks fluent German. He has been teaching at the Graduate School for over 10 years. Steve has an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas and a B.S. in Computer Science from California Lutheran University and the Universität Salzburg in Austria. He is certified as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Project Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). ## Pricing **Tuition:** $899