Don’t prompt AI - Let it interview you instead

AI can turn the fear of the blank page into a private coaching conversation, especially when you let an AI tool interview you instead of asking it to spit out generic text.

This is particularly powerful for HR professionals who need to design thoughtful, people‑centred strategies and training, not churn out templated content that ignores organisational nuance.

Why HR leaders freeze at the blank page

Staring at an empty document is rarely about a lack of expertise; it is usually about the pressure to get it right first time for a complex audience with competing needs.

In HR and learning and development, this shows up when designing tailored programmes, policies or strategies that must align with culture, risk, UK employment legislation and lived employee experience, all at once. The blank page becomes a mirror of all that complexity, so many leaders delay starting or fall back on safe, generic wording.

AI as your honest mirror, not your mask

Used well, an AI tool is less like a junior copywriter and more like a curious coach: it asks you questions, reflects your answers back, and helps you hear what you really think before you share it with others.

When you allow it to interview you, it often surfaces angles you had not considered and highlights gaps or assumptions you did not realise you were making. That means the first draft is no longer a piece of finished prose, but a structured record of your own thinking that you can then refine, challenge and align with your organisation’s values.

A practical AI interview workflow for HR and L&D

Here is a simple way to use an AI tool as your interviewer the next time you need to design a tailored HR initiative or training programme. It works whether you are building something for a single client, your own organisation, or a specific population like line managers or senior leaders.

1. FRAME IT: Start with context, not content

Share a short paragraph with the AI about the organisation, the audience (for example, managers in a logistics company or leaders in a charity), and the specific challenge you are addressing. Mention any known constraints such as budget, time, regulatory issues or cultural sensitivities.

2. QUESTION YOU: Ask AI to interview you

Instead of “Write me a training plan”, say something like: “Act as an experienced HR and L&D consultant. Interview me to help me design a tailored programme for this situation. Ask one question at a time. Your goal is to uncover organisational nuance, risks, cultural factors and success measures before we talk about content.”

3. GET AI TO DO THE THINKING: Answer in your own words, quickly

Treat it like a coaching session, not an exam.

Respond in short, honest sentences, including what you are unsure about (“We have no clear success measures yet”, or “Senior leaders are nervous about AI but want to look confident”). This is where the value lies: surfacing what you know, what you assume, and what you have not yet tested.

4. Invite challenge and missing angles

Once you have gone through a round of questions, ask the AI: “What have I not considered that could matter for this organisation, given its people, culture and sector?” This is often where it highlights stakeholder groups you have missed, potential unintended consequences, or equity and inclusion angles you may want to explore.

5. Only then, move to structure

When you are satisfied the questioning has gone deep enough, ask the AI to summarise your conversation into a draft outline: objectives, audience needs, key risks, core modules or themes, and suggested measures of success. This outline is not your final product; it is a thinking scaffold that you then refine, simplify or challenge to reflect your professional judgment and your understanding of the organisation.

Template: AI interview prompt for HR and L&D leaders

To make this easy to try, here is a template you can adapt for almost any HR or people challenge. You can keep it broad if you want a wide‑ranging conversation, or make it more specific if you know exactly where you want to focus. Use it as a starting point and tweak the wording so it sounds like you.

Start with your context:

Question (how you'd ask AI to interview you):

"Act as an experienced recruitment and talent acquisition specialist. Interview me about this challenge, one question at a time. Your goal is to help me understand what's really causing our recruitment problems and what kind of initiative might work for our specific situation. Focus on uncovering organisational factors, candidate perspectives, and practical constraints before we talk about solutions. Start with your first question."

Once you are happy that AI has asked you all the questions it needs to, only then can you ask it to summarise the conversation and ask it to write a first draft.

Keeping it authentic

This approach also addresses the ethical concern that AI‑generated content can feel like empty filler if leaders use it to avoid thinking deeply about how they treat people.

Because you are feeding in real context, answering questions in your own language and then editing the output yourself, the final piece remains grounded in your values and the reality of your organisation, not something that ChatGPT has made up using generic content it has learnt elsewhere. You can actively instruct the AI not to invent policies or statements that you would not stand behind, making it a tool for reflection and challenge rather than a shortcut to glossy but hollow messaging.

If you want to take this further

If this resonates and you are curious about building these skills in a more structured way, the next HR AI Accelerator programme runs on 12 and 13 January 2026, focused on safe, practical ways to embed AI into real HR work rather than just talking about it.

It is designed for HR professionals who want to deepen their strategic impact in 2026 while keeping human judgment and organisational nuance at the centre of everything they create.

You can find out more information, and to book your place here.