Three Expert ChatGPT Prompt Techniques For Career Advancement

Persona prompting helps you step into the shoes of your stakeholders, which is perfect if you're a product or project manager. - getty

Anyone can write a ChatGPT prompt, but not everyone can write a good prompt. It took me months of experimentation to realize this.

So many professionals get hyped up about AI tools that they miss the point. Although generative AI has been shown to boost salaries significantly, with some research suggesting by as much as 47%, it’s not the AI tool itself that will improve your career prospects. It’s the generative AI skills you develop—what you do with the tool and how you prompt it.

If you’re prompting poorly, the results will show in the output. You may not be a computer scientist or AI researcher, but if you want to get ahead in your career, mastering prompt techniques is what will make you stand out. This is the difference between using ChatGPT as a simple search engine and turning it into one of your most profitable co-workers.

3 ChatGPT Prompt Engineering Techniques For 2026

In this article, you will learn three powerful prompt techniques for getting the best out of ChatGPT. You might have seen these in prompt packs online, but now you'll understand the strategy behind them.

By the end of this short read, you’ll be better equipped to use generative AI tools like Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT effectively. This will lead to better quality output, which directly translates to boosting your productivity, speed of execution, and ultimately, your salary.

Technique 1: Persona Prompting

Persona prompting is where you instruct an LLM like ChatGPT to adopt a specific persona. This improves the output and allows for better accuracy. It also helps you virtually step into the mindset of decision-makers, stakeholders, or customers, which is a powerful tool for leaders and entrepreneurs to consider how their actions might be perceived. This is especially great for product and project managers.

It also helps you receive tailored expert advice from specific types of experts or have the AI act as a specific type of co-worker, like a marketing assistant.

Example ChatGPT Prompt #1:

You’re an early-stage fintech investor with a background at Y Combinator. Based on what you know about XYZ start-up, craft a pitch deck that would make you want to participate in our Series A funding round.

Example ChatGPT Prompt #2:

You’re a LinkedIn ghost-writer. Help me create a content calendar of LinkedIn post ideas to establish my thought leadership brand in XYZ for the next 30 days.

Technique 2: Provide In-Context Learning

LLMs work based on the data they have been trained on. That training continues as you use the bot. The more you train it, the more effective it will be for you. One way to train ChatGPT on what you're looking for is by demonstrating it in action.

In your prompt, give ChatGPT a series of examples so the LLM can see the patterns and understand how it should imitate those patterns in its output. The last example leaves a gap for the LLM to complete the pattern. This is called in-context learning.

Example ChatGPT Prompt:

Rephrase these formal sentences from my email into a conversational tone.

Formal: I regret to inform you that the meeting has been postponed. Friendly: Hey there, just a heads-up, the meeting’s been moved to a later date.

Formal: Unfortunately, we are declining your offer but thank you for reaching out. Friendly: Thank you for thinking of us! We appreciate your offer but will have to pass on this one for now.

Formal: We are unable to accommodate your request at this time. Friendly:

Technique 3: Customize ChatGPT

Last but not least, don’t forget to customize your LLM as far as possible, especially if you use it for specific types of tasks. With ChatGPT, you can easily personalize the output:

• Head to settings (click your name that appears on the bottom left of your screen).
• Click on "personalization".
• Include your custom instructions, personalizing it based on your role, preferences, organizational values, and brand voice for communications, marketing, or sales. You can ask it to adopt a specific behavior across your chats, and you can even select from ChatGPT’s range of personalities—from its default cheerful persona to “cynic,” “robotic,” “listener,” or “nerd.”

Adopting AI as a strategic partner requires you to master your prompt technique. - getty

These three prompt techniques help you get the most out of your time using ChatGPT. They make you more effective in your role and prove to employers that you can apply AI strategically, adopting it as a partner instead of just producing generic AI slop.

Check out these additional ChatGPT prompt examples in a recent Forbes article.