Step by step guide to creating custom GPTs for human resources professionals and freelance HR consultants 

Artificial intelligence is no longer something you see in movies; it’s here, it’s reshaping industries and empowering employees and business owners to achieve more. 

Among the latest advancements in AI, Custom GPTs offer HR professionals and HR consultants an unparalleled opportunity to enhance their workflows, client offerings, and strategic decision-making.

But what are Custom GPTs, and how can they revolutionise the HR domain? Let’s explore.

What are custom GPTs?

Think of a Custom GPT as your bespoke AI assistant. 

It’s a version of ChatGPT that can be tailored to your specific needs—whether you’re managing recruitment processes, improving employee engagement strategies, or building a personal brand as a HR consultant.

Custom GPTs combine OpenAI’s powerful conversational capabilities with the flexibility to focus on your priorities. 

Custom GPTs require a Pro, paid OpenAI account and by integrating specialised instructions and even your own data, these tools are designed to help HR professionals work smarter, not harder.

What is the difference between a custom GPT and a standard prompt?

The key difference between a Custom GPT and a prompt lies in their functionality and consistency. 

A prompt is a one-time instruction or query provided to a general AI model, such as ChatGPT, to guide it in generating a specific response. 

It requires the user to repeatedly re-establish context for every new interaction. 

In contrast, a Custom GPT is a tailored version of the AI, designed to retain and operate within a specific set of pre-configured instructions and integrated knowledge. This persistence eliminates the need to reintroduce context, making Custom GPTs far more efficient for specialised, recurring tasks. 

For example, an HR consultant can create a Custom GPT preloaded with employment laws and company policies to answer compliance queries consistently, while a prompt-based approach would require re-entering the same information each time. Custom GPTs are thus ideal for users who need specialised, reliable, and streamlined assistance.

Key features for HR professionals

Custom GPTs come equipped with features that make them especially valuable in the HR space:

1. Tailored expertise
   HR is a broad field, and no two roles are the same. A Custom GPT (or one for each specialism) can be trained to focus on your niche, whether it’s diversity and inclusion, performance management, compliance, employee relations, running your business, or doing your administration, the possibilities are endless.

2. File integration
   Upload key documents and training data such as employee handbooks, job descriptions, or labour or employment laws, and your GPT will reference them in its responses. Imagine having an assistant that’s not only intelligent but also knows your organisation’s policies or your HR consultancy business inside out.

3. Shareable AI assistants
   Custom GPTs can be shared across teams. For in-house HR departments, this means consistent advice across stakeholders. For independent consultants, it’s a way to showcase added value to clients or to build up a complete knowledge base of your client’s wants, needs and preferences.

4. Advanced features
   With functionalities like data analysis and web browsing, Custom GPTs can assist with tasks ranging from creating salary benchmarking reports to analysing employee engagement survey results.

Practical Applications in HR

Before we get started on the practical applications that custom GPTs have within HR, let’s not forget GDPR and privacy.  With AI still in its infancy you need to remember two things:  GDPR and the fact you are still the expert so all outputs must be checked.

Let’s dive into how Custom GPTs can transform everyday tasks for HR professionals and consultants with some examples:

Recruitment and talent acquisition

• Screening Resumes: Automate the process of shortlisting candidates by programming your GPT to match resumes with job criteria.

• Interview Preparation: Create tailored interview questions that align with specific job roles and company values.

Employee engagement

• Survey Analysis: Upload engagement surveys and let your GPT summarise insights, identifying trends and areas for improvement.

• Employee Communication: Draft personalised messages or policy updates that strike the right tone every time.

• Strategies:  Brainstorm and develop specific strategies for clients, the senior leadership team, individual teams or complete organisations

Learning and development

• Training program creation: Use GPT to design bespoke training materials or learning pathways for employees.

• Knowledge base management: Centralise and access information instantly, whether it’s about career progression frameworks or onboarding processes.

HR Consultancy AI examples

• Client proposals: Automate the drafting of detailed, professional proposals tailored to prospective clients.

• Market insights: Stay ahead of trends by using a Custom GPT to analyse industry reports and forecast changes in talent markets.

• Identify new niches:  Discover what possible additional services you could offer in your HR consultancy through the power of AI

Why choose custom GPTs over standard prompting?

While you could use standard ChatGPT with carefully crafted prompts, Custom GPTs take efficiency and accuracy to the next level. Here’s why:

1. Consistent context
   Once configured, your Custom GPT doesn’t need a reintroduction, unless you want to add new training data to your Custom GPT. This is invaluable for maintaining continuity across projects or when tackling complex, recurring issues.

2. Expanded knowledge
   With the ability to upload specific documents or datasets, your GPT is as knowledgeable as the information you provide.

3. Effortless efficiency
   Automate repetitive tasks, freeing up your time for strategic HR initiatives or client-focused sales and marketing activities.

Getting started: Building your HR custom GPT

Creating a Custom GPT for HR consultants or in-house HR professional tasks and activities is simpler than you might think. No coding expertise is required—just a clear understanding of your goals, whether they are business related, administration related or HR project based (or even client based custom GPT). 

Here’s how to get started:

1. Define the purpose
   Decide what you need your Custom GPT to do. Is it managing HR queries? Preparing client deliverables? Clarifying workplace policies?  One tip would be to focus on one clear output, rather than trying to get your GPT to do everythinig

2. Set up instructions
   Provide clear guidelines about how your GPT should behave. For instance, should it take a formal or conversational tone? Should it specialise in recruitment or focus on compliance?

3. Integrate knowledge
   Upload relevant files, such as regulatory documents, case studies, or internal templates, examples of your work, or frequently asked questions, to ensure your GPT is informed and accurate.

4. Test and fefine
   Experiment with different queries to fine-tune responses. Adjust as needed to ensure the GPT meets your expectations.

5. Share and scale
   Once ready, deploy your GPT for individual use or across teams.

The future of HR is customisable

Custom GPTs, if used properly, will create massive value for in-house HR professionals and independent, freelance HR consultants. 

By embracing this technology, you’re not just keeping pace with industry trends - you’re setting the standard for innovation, efficiency, and personalised service.

What challenges in your HR workflow could a Custom GPT help you solve? 

Why not book a free 15 minute call with me to discuss your Custom GPT requirements?

STEP BY STEP CUSTOM GPT CREATION FOR HR WITH EXAMPLES:

Step 1: Define Your Purpose

Before jumping in, clarify your goals. Ask yourself:

• For HR consultants: Do you need help drafting client proposals, conducting market research, managing project timelines, sales and marketing or something else?

• For in-house HR professionals: Are you looking to streamline recruitment, automate employee queries, create new policies or procedures, or analyse engagement surveys or something else?

Clearly outlining what you want your Custom GPT to achieve will shape its functionality and ensure it meets your needs.

Step 2: Access the GPT creation tool

To start building your Custom GPT:

1. Log into your ChatGPT Plus or Enterprise account. These subscriptions unlock the ability to create and manage Custom GPTs.

2. Navigate to the Custom GPT creation interface within your account dashboard.

Step 3: Configure core settings

Begin setting up your Custom GPT with the following details:

• Add an image:  Create and upload a relevant image to your Custom GPT

• Name Your GPT: Choose a name that reflects its role, such as “Talent Acquisition Assistant” or “HR Policy Guru.”

• Add a description: so you remember what your GPT is called as you may start creating many others

• Set the tone: Decide whether the assistant should adopt a formal tone for official documents or a conversational tone for day-to-day queries and add information about the detailed instructions you want to provide (see below).

Step 4: Provide instructions

Instructions are the backbone of a Custom GPT. Here’s how to guide your AI:

• Freelance HR Consultants:
  Include instructions like, “Help me draft proposals using the structure provided in [file],” or, “Generate LinkedIn content that promotes HR consultancy services and, in particular, my specialism of employee relations.”

• In-House HR Professionals:
  Examples include, “Provide answers to employee FAQs about benefits based on the uploaded handbook,” or, “Generate job descriptions for technical roles.”

These instructions ensure your GPT understands your specific context and delivers accurate results.

Step 5: Integrate knowledge

One of the standout features of Custom GPTs is the ability to upload relevant documents, which the AI can then reference when generating responses. For example:

• Upload employee handbooks: Enable your GPT to answer policy-related questions quickly.

• Add example client proposal documents:  Train your GPT in your style and language and provide a draft template for your client proposal documents

• Include market research reports: Equip freelance consultants with data for creating client presentations.

• Add regulatory documents: Help in-house HR teams or independent HR Associates navigate compliance queries without manual searches.

• Include template documentation: If you are generating particular reports, for example, include a general template of what you want the report to look like and reference this in the detailed Instructions.

This step ensures your GPT becomes a reliable, informed assistant tailored to your work.

Step 6: Enable advanced features

Custom GPTs can go beyond simple text interactions. Explore these additional capabilities to expand its utility:

• Web browsing: Stay updated on industry trends or find the latest employment laws.

• Data analysis: Use your GPT to generate summaries or insights from uploaded datasets, such as employee survey results.

• Image creation: Create visuals for HR presentations, documentation or social media campaigns.

These features can be turned on or off, depending on your requirements.

Step 7: Test your GPT

Once your GPT is set up, test its functionality to ensure it aligns with your expectations:

• For HR Consultants: Ask it to generate a proposal for a specific type of client or create a social media post showcasing your expertise.  Review the output and then update your uploaded training documentation, or your Instructions, to ensure consistency and the output is as you require

• For In-House HR teams: Test its ability to draft a job description that incorporates your mission, vision or values, summarise engagement survey results or draft an appropriate strategic plan, or answer a policy query.

Adjust its instructions and capabilities as needed to refine its performance.

Step 8: Deploy and share

Your Custom GPT is ready to use!

• HR Freelancers: Use it as your personal assistant to handle repetitive tasks, or share it with clients to showcase the added value you provide.

• In-House Teams: Roll it out across your department to streamline operations, ensuring consistency in responses and advice.

Examples of HR-Specific Custom GPT Applications

To illustrate its potential, here are a few use cases:

• Recruitment: Automate initial candidate screening by matching resumes to job descriptions.

• Compliance: Quickly generate reports summarising compliance risks based on local labour laws.

• Learning and Development: Design tailored training programs using employee performance data.

• Client Support (for HR Consultants): Generate timely, high-quality responses to client queries using uploaded reference materials.

Why Custom GPTs Are Ideal for HR

For HR consultants, Custom GPTs offer a competitive edge, enabling you to deliver insights faster and with greater precision. 

For in-house professionals, they’re a productivity booster, helping you focus on strategic initiatives rather than being bogged down by repetitive tasks.

With these step-by-step instructions, you’re equipped to create a GPT that meets your unique HR challenges head-on. 

So, what are you waiting for? Start building your Custom GPT today and experience the AI revolution firsthand.

Need help with your custom GPT creation?  Check out our services HERE.