Identify skill gaps
- A recent resume builder survey found that 91% of firms are looking for workers with GenAI skills. The same report revealed that 66% of business leaders say hiring workers with GenAI experience will give the company a competitive advantage. So what exactly are these skills? Let's start with AI literacy. Employees will need basic knowledge and understanding of natural language processing, large language models and the nature of GenAI, what it is capable of and how it can help them. Of course, the most critical skill lies in the ability to write strong prompts that generate the appropriate responses that enable them to be more productive and creative. So developing skills and designing and structuring prompts hands-down is key. But prompt engineering is more of an art than a science. So creating prompts that deliver valuable specificity and depth also requires a blend of hard and soft skills. Sometimes a prompt simply in the form of a question will suffice. In other instances, generating the proper response may require substantial context and may feel like writing a story or a word problem. More often than not, several additional prompts are required to generate optimal responses. And sometimes the prompter may need to completely reverse engineer the approach by asking GenAI to generate the most appropriate prompt to arrive at the desired solution or to uncover gaps. Employees need help to move beyond simple prompts to experience the full potential of GenAI in the context of their work. Through these examples, you can see the importance of helping your employees develop and learn how to combine technical, hard, and soft skills to master the art of prompt engineering. Technical is the prompt engineering skills. Hard skills like complex problem solving, and soft skills like creativity and curiosity. Systems, design, analytical thinking and adaptability are also vital adjuncts in developing prompt engineering skills. LinkedIn Learning is a great place to start and has several courses on GenAI and prompt engineering that'll be helpful. For additional resources and formulating your list of soft and hard skills to align with prompt engineering, LinkedIn's most in-demand skills list, the World Economic Forms list of the top 10 in-demand skills for 2025 and the MIT Human Skills Matrix are a great start. Take time now to reflect on the combination of soft, technical, and hard skills your employees will need to embark on their journey of embedding GenAI into their work processes. Then join me in the next video where we'll discuss training.