150+ ChatGPT and Claude Prompts for Founders, Marketers, and Job Seekers (Copy-and-Paste, 2026)

Quick Answer

This guide collects over 150 practical prompts across nine categories — content and personal brand, AI search visibility (AEO), leadership and executive presence, starting a business, resumes, cover letters, interview preparation, AI agents and productivity, and visual identity. Every prompt is written to be copied, pasted, and customized with your own specific details — the bracketed placeholders are exactly what to replace before running it. Each section links to a deeper, dedicated guide on this site covering the strategy behind that category, so you can use this as either a fast reference or a jumping-off point into a full framework.

How to Get the Most Out of These Prompts

Before diving in, a few principles that apply across every category in this guide, worth understanding upfront rather than discovering by trial and error.

Replace every bracketed placeholder with real, specific detail. A prompt run with generic placeholders left in, or replaced with vague summaries, produces generic output. The single biggest factor in output quality across every category below is the specificity of what you feed in, not which exact prompt wording you use.

Provide your own voice or reference material where a prompt calls for it. Several prompts in the content and writing sections explicitly ask you to paste in examples of your own past writing — this step is what separates output that sounds like you from output that sounds like generic AI writing, a distinction covered in depth in our tools-tested guide.

Treat every output as a first draft, not a final answer. Every category in this guide benefits from a human editing pass — sharpening generic phrasing, verifying factual claims, and adding the specific detail only you actually have.

Follow up rather than starting over. If a first response isn’t quite right, a specific follow-up (“make this more concise,” “add a concrete example here,” “this sounds too generic — make it more specific to my actual situation”) almost always produces a better result than abandoning the prompt and starting fresh.

Category 1: Content and Personal Brand Prompts

For the full strategy behind this category, see our guide to building leadership authority and our tested AI tools for personal branding.

“Here’s a rough voice memo transcript: [paste transcript]. Turn this into a polished LinkedIn post, keeping my actual phrasing and opinions intact — don’t smooth it into generic corporate language.”
“Here are three examples of my past writing: [paste examples]. Based on the voice and style in these, draft a short article about [topic].”
“Take this long-form article: [paste article] and break it into five short-form social posts, each standing alone.”
“I made this decision recently: [describe decision]. Help me turn this into a ‘what I got wrong’ or ‘lesson learned’ post, keeping it honest and specific rather than generic.”
“Suggest three angles for a piece about [topic] that would be genuinely different from the generic advice already published on this subject.”
“Review this draft: [paste draft] and flag any sentences that sound generic or could have been written by anyone, rather than specifically me.”
“Help me draft a one-page positioning document: what I want to be known for, who my content is for, and three phrases or ideas I want to be associated with.”
“Turn this messy set of notes: [paste notes] into a clear, structured outline for a long-form article.”
“Suggest five recurring content formats I could publish regularly on the topic of [your area of expertise].”
“Rewrite this paragraph to be more direct and declarative, stating the core claim in the first sentence rather than building up to it: [paste paragraph].”
“Here’s my content from the last quarter: [paste titles/topics]. Identify the three themes that generated the most engagement and suggest how to go deeper on them next quarter.”
“Draft a short bio for me (100 words) based on this longer background: [paste background], written in a confident but not overstated tone.”
“Suggest a name for a framework or methodology based on this process I use: [describe process].”
“Help me write a newsletter section recapping this week’s content: [paste links/summaries].”
“Critique this LinkedIn post for genericness — tell me honestly if it sounds like it could have been written by anyone: [paste post].”
“Draft five different opening lines for an article about [topic], each with a distinct angle.”
“Turn this list of talking points into a cohesive short article: [paste points].”
“Suggest a title and subtitle for this piece that’s specific rather than generic: [paste draft or summary].”
“Help me write a LinkedIn comment responding to this post that adds a genuine perspective rather than generic agreement: [paste post].”
“Review this piece for repeated words or phrases I overuse, and suggest alternatives: [paste piece].”

Category 2: AI Search Visibility (AEO) Prompts

For the full strategy, see our complete AEO guide.

“Review this article: [paste article] and tell me if the core answer to the likely search query appears within the first two sentences of each section.”
“Suggest an FAQ section for this article, phrased as real questions someone might type into an AI assistant: [paste article topic].”
“Ask yourself: what would you say if someone asked you directly, ‘what is [topic]?’ Write that as a clear, two-sentence direct answer.”
“Review this piece for hedging language — qualifiers that make claims less citable — and suggest more direct alternatives: [paste text].”
“Suggest three named frameworks I could extract from this description of my process: [describe your process].”
“Ask several AI assistants: ‘What do you know about [your name/company]?’ — then help me identify gaps between what’s being said and what I actually want to be known for.”
“Turn this list of ideas into a numbered, named framework with a short definition for each step: [paste ideas].”
“Suggest a comparison table structure for this topic that would be easy for an AI system to extract cleanly: [topic].”
“Review this bio and my LinkedIn bio for consistency: [paste both] — flag any differences in how my expertise is described.”
“Suggest three questions people commonly ask about [topic] that I should turn into a dedicated FAQ section.”
“Draft a clear, one-sentence definition of [term I use in my work] that I could reuse consistently across my content.”
“Review this article for any claims stated without clear support, and suggest where more specific evidence would help: [paste article].”
“Suggest a structured, numbered framework I could build out of this general advice: [paste advice].”
“Rewrite this section header as a direct question someone might actually type into an AI assistant: [paste header].”
“Review this piece and tell me which sentence would most likely be extracted and cited by an AI system, and why: [paste piece].”

Category 3: Leadership and Executive Presence Prompt

For the full framework, see our leadership authority guide and our guide to executive presence.

“I have a board meeting about [topic] coming up. Help me anticipate the five hardest questions I might get asked and draft direct, honest answers to each.”
“Here’s the outline for a talk I’m giving on [topic]: [paste outline]. Suggest a stronger opening that doesn’t start with a generic hook.”
“Act as a skeptical audience member and ask me three tough follow-up questions about this talk topic: [topic]. Wait for my answer before asking the next one.”
“Here’s a transcript of a talk I gave: [paste transcript]. Identify any verbal habits or filler phrases I repeat often.”
“I need to deliver a difficult message to my team about [situation]. Help me structure it clearly and honestly, without softening the substance.”
“Help me draft three sharp, quotable positions on [topic] that I could reference in an upcoming interview or panel.”
“Review this decision I made: [describe decision] and help me think through what I’d do differently, for a ‘lessons learned’ reflection.”
“Suggest a structure for a ‘what I got wrong’ post based on this situation: [describe situation].”
“Act as an interviewer for a podcast about [topic] and ask me a challenging opening question.”
“Help me draft a short, honest response to public criticism about [situation], without being defensive.”
“Review this talk outline and tell me where the argument is weakest or most likely to draw pushback: [paste outline].”
“Help me prepare a concise, honest answer to a question I’ve been avoiding about [topic].”
“Suggest three questions a genuinely skeptical board member might ask about this plan: [describe plan].”
“Help me draft a short reflection on a mistake I made, focused on what I’d do differently rather than making excuses: [describe mistake].”
“Review this message I’m about to send to my team and tell me honestly if it’s clear or if it’s hedging: [paste message].”

Category 4: Starting and Running a Business

For the full roadmap, see our complete founder’s guide to starting a business with AI.

“Research the top five competitors in [your market] and summarize their pricing, positioning, and any recent news from the last quarter.”
“Draft a customer discovery interview script for validating this business idea: [describe idea].”
“Here are notes from five customer conversations: [paste notes]. Identify the common themes and any patterns worth acting on.”
“Help me draft a one-page business plan outline based on this idea: [describe idea].”
“Explain, in plain language, what I need to know about [a legal/administrative topic] before meeting with a professional about it.”
“Help me articulate my business’s positioning: what specifically we do, who it’s for, and what makes it different from [competitor].”
“Draft a founder story for my About page, based on this background: [paste background].”
“Suggest three ways I could validate demand for [product/service idea] before building it.”
“Help me think through the first 90 days of launching [business idea] — what should happen in what order?”
“Draft a pitch summary (100 words) for [business idea], written for an investor unfamiliar with the space.”
“Suggest three questions I should be able to answer with real evidence before I start building [business idea].”
“Research typical pricing models used in [industry] and summarize the pros and cons of each.”
“Help me draft a simple FAQ for my website addressing the top questions a potential customer would have about [product/service].”
“Review this business plan draft and flag anything that sounds like generic startup language rather than something specific to my business: [paste draft].”
“Suggest three potential risks to this business idea that I might be underestimating: [describe idea].”

Category 5: Resume Prompts

For a full tool comparison, see our tested AI resume builders guide.

“Here’s my messy work history: [paste details]. Help me turn this into clear, achievement-oriented bullet points.”
“Here’s a job posting: [paste posting] and my current resume: [paste resume]. Suggest which of my experiences to emphasize and which to trim.”
“Turn this vague bullet point into a specific, quantified achievement: [paste bullet], using these real numbers: [provide numbers].”
“Review my resume for generic, overused phrases and suggest more specific alternatives: [paste resume].”
“Help me write a resume summary section (2-3 sentences) tailored to this job posting: [paste posting].”
“I’m changing careers from [old field] to [new field]. Help me reframe this experience to highlight transferable skills: [paste experience].”
“Check my resume for consistency in tense and formatting: [paste resume].”
“Suggest which keywords from this job posting I should make sure appear in my resume: [paste posting].”
“Help me shorten this resume bullet point without losing the key achievement: [paste bullet].”
“Review my resume and flag anything that reads as an unverifiable or vague claim: [paste resume].”
“Help me describe this internship or entry-level role in a way that sounds concrete and achievement-oriented, not just a list of duties: [describe role].”
“Suggest a better way to describe this employment gap on my resume: [describe circumstances].”
“Review this resume for formatting choices that might cause problems with automated ATS screening: [paste resume].”
“Help me prioritize which of these five experiences is most relevant to this job posting: [list experiences] / [paste posting].”
“Suggest a one-line resume headline based on this background: [paste background].”

Category 6: Cover Letter Prompts

For a full tool comparison, see our tested AI cover letter generators guide.

“Here’s my resume: [paste resume] and this job posting: [paste posting]. Draft a cover letter that adds genuine context beyond what’s already on my resume, not a summary of it.”
“Here’s why I’m genuinely interested in this role: [describe motivation]. Help me turn this into a strong opening line for a cover letter.”
“Review this cover letter draft for generic phrases that could apply to any application: [paste draft].”
“Help me shorten this cover letter to three focused paragraphs: [paste draft].”
“I’m applying for a role in a new industry. Help me write a cover letter that explains my transition clearly: [describe background and target role].”
“Suggest a strong closing paragraph for this cover letter that doesn’t sound generic: [paste draft].”
“Rewrite this opening line so it doesn’t start with ‘I am writing to apply for’: [paste opening].”
“Review this cover letter and tell me honestly if it could apply to a different company with minimal edits — if so, help me make it more specific: [paste letter].”
“Suggest one specific detail from this job posting I should reference directly in my cover letter: [paste posting].”
“Help me write a brief cover letter (under 200 words) for a role where a shorter format is expected: [describe role].”

Category 7: Interview Preparation Prompts

For the full guide, see our AI interview preparation article.

“Here’s a job posting: [paste posting]. Generate ten likely interview questions based specifically on the listed requirements.”
“Act as an interviewer for a [role type] position and ask me one question at a time, following up naturally based on my answers.”
“Here’s a rough description of a challenge I handled at work: [describe situation]. Help me structure this into a clear STAR-method answer.”
“Give me honest, critical feedback on this practice answer — what’s unclear, and what would a skeptical interviewer follow up on?: [paste answer].”
“Research this company: [company name] and summarize their recent news, competitive position, and likely current priorities.”
“Help me prepare a specific, genuine answer to ‘how do you use AI tools in your work,’ based on this real example: [describe your actual AI usage].”
“Suggest three thoughtful questions I could ask my interviewer, based on this research about the company: [paste research].”
“Review my answer to ‘tell me about yourself’ and tell me if it’s too generic or too long: [paste answer].”
“Help me prepare for a panel interview by anticipating different angles a technical interviewer versus an HR interviewer might ask about this role: [role].”
“Help me think through a specific example of a time I disagreed with a decision at work, structured using STAR: [describe situation].”
“Suggest a concise way to describe my greatest weakness that’s genuine, not a disguised strength.”
“Act as an interviewer and ask me a hard question about this gap or weakness in my background: [describe].”
“Help me prepare a two-minute answer to ‘walk me through your resume’ based on this background: [paste resume].”
“Review this answer for filler words and unnecessary hedging: [paste transcript of my spoken answer].”
“Suggest what a hiring manager for this specific role is likely most worried about, and how I could proactively address it in an interview: [describe role].”

Category 8: AI Agents and Productivity Prompts

For the full guide, see our AI agents for founders article.

“Here’s a transcript of a meeting: [paste transcript]. Extract clear action items and who owns each one.”
“Research these five companies: [list companies] and summarize their pricing and positioning in a comparison table.”
“Help me identify one well-bounded, low-risk task in my week that could realistically be delegated to an AI agent.”
“Draft a first-pass outreach message to this type of prospect: [describe prospect], based on this research: [paste research].”
“Review this plan I’m about to act on and push back honestly if you see a flaw, rather than just agreeing with it: [paste plan].”
“Summarize this long document into the five most important points: [paste document].”
“Help me draft a simple support response template for this common customer question: [describe question].”
“Turn these rough meeting notes into a clean summary I can send to the team: [paste notes].”
“Suggest three recurring, well-bounded tasks in my week that could realistically be automated.”
“Review this automated workflow I’m considering and flag any step where a human review checkpoint would be worth keeping: [describe workflow].”

Category 9: Visual and Brand Identity Prompts

For the full comparison, see our tested AI headshot generators guide.

“Suggest a simple, consistent color palette and font pairing for a brand described as: [describe brand personality].”
“Help me write a brief for a designer or AI image tool describing a consistent visual template for social media quote cards, based on this brand description: [describe brand].”
“Review this batch of visual assets for consistency and flag anything that looks off-brand: [describe assets].”
“Suggest three background and outfit style options for a professional headshot suited to [industry/role].”
“Help me write a simple brand style guide summary (colors, fonts, tone) based on this description: [describe brand].”

Category 10: Choosing and Reviewing AI-Generated Work

A few general-purpose prompts worth having on hand regardless of category, useful for getting more out of any AI assistant’s output.

“Give me your honest, critical assessment of this — don’t just validate it: [paste content].”
“What’s the weakest part of this argument, and how would a smart critic respond to it?: [paste argument].”
“Rewrite this to be 30% shorter without losing the key points: [paste content].”
“Explain this back to me in your own words to check I’ve been clear: [paste explanation].”
“What assumptions am I making here that might not hold up?: [describe plan or idea].”
“Suggest three questions I haven’t thought to ask about this: [describe situation].”
“Compare these two options and tell me what each one prioritizes and what it trades off: [describe option A and B].”
“What would someone who disagreed with this position say?: [paste position].”
“Identify anything in this draft that sounds overconfident given the actual evidence I have: [paste draft].”
“Help me turn this rough idea into three clearly different possible directions: [describe idea].”
“What’s missing from this plan that a more experienced person in this area would likely flag?: [paste plan].”
“Simplify this explanation for someone with no background in the topic: [paste explanation].”
“What’s the single most important thing to get right here, and what’s a lower priority than it might seem?: [describe situation].”
“Help me draft three possible responses to this message, each with a different tone: [paste message].”
“Review this for anything that could be misread or misunderstood by someone without full context: [paste content].”
“What would you ask me if you were trying to genuinely understand this situation rather than just agree with my framing?: [describe situation].”
“Suggest a more specific, concrete version of this vague statement: [paste statement].”
“What’s a counterargument to this that I should be prepared to address?: [paste argument].”
“Help me identify which parts of this are facts, which are assumptions, and which are opinions: [paste content].”
“Give me a blunt, one-paragraph summary of the real risk here: [describe situation].”
“What would make this genuinely more persuasive, beyond just adding more detail?: [paste draft].”
“Suggest a follow-up question I should ask before acting on this: [describe situation].”
“Rewrite this in a more confident, direct tone without overstating what I actually know: [paste draft].”
“What’s the strongest version of the opposite argument to this?: [paste argument].”
“Help me identify the actual decision I’m avoiding in this situation: [describe situation].”
“What details am I leaving out that would change how someone evaluates this?: [paste content].”
“Suggest a clearer way to structure this so the main point comes first: [paste content].”
“What would a genuinely skeptical reader think is missing from this?: [paste content].”
“Help me turn this list of concerns into three prioritized action items: [list concerns].”
“What’s one thing I could cut from this entirely without losing anything important?: [paste content].”
“Give me a second opinion on this decision as if you had no idea what I already think about it: [describe decision].”
“Suggest a more specific title or headline for this than the generic one I have: [paste current title].”

Choosing Which Assistant to Run These Prompts On

Most prompts in this guide work well across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, but a few categories lean toward one assistant’s specific strengths, covered in more depth in our full comparison of the three. Content and voice-preservation prompts (Category 1) tend to perform best on Claude. Research-heavy prompts (Categories 2, 4, and 7’s company research) benefit from Gemini’s search integration or a browsing-enabled ChatGPT session. Mock interview and voice-based practice prompts (Category 7) work particularly well with ChatGPT’s voice mode. For most people, running everything through whichever assistant you already use daily is simpler and perfectly sufficient — the prompt structure matters more than which specific assistant executes it.

Common Mistakes When Using Prompt Libraries Like This One

Running a prompt with placeholders left in. A prompt that still contains “[describe your situation]” instead of your actual situation produces generic, unusable output — every prompt in this guide depends on real, specific input.

Accepting the first output without a follow-up. Many of the strongest results in this guide come from a second or third follow-up message refining the first response, not from the first prompt alone.

Using a prompt exactly as written every time. These prompts are starting templates, not fixed scripts — adjusting the specific wording to match your actual voice and situation, the same principle covered throughout this site’s content guides, produces meaningfully better results than copying and pasting without adaptation.

Skipping the human review step. As with every AI-assisted task covered across this site, treat every output from these prompts as a draft to refine, not a finished result to use unedited.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do these prompts work on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini equally well? Most work well across all three, though a few categories — particularly voice-preserving content and live research — perform noticeably better on one assistant specifically, as covered in the section above and in our full three-way comparison.

How do I customize these prompts for my specific situation? Replace every bracketed placeholder with your own real, specific detail — the more specific the input, the more useful the output. Several prompts also work better as the opening of a longer conversation, where you follow up with more detail or ask for revisions rather than expecting a perfect result from a single message.

Can I use these prompts for free, or do I need a paid AI subscription? Nearly all of these prompts work on the free tiers of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — our dedicated guide to free AI tools for founders covers what’s realistic to expect from each free tier if you’re running a high volume of these prompts regularly.

Which category of prompts should I start with? Start with whichever category maps to your most immediate, real task — if you’re job searching, start with Categories 5 through 7; if you’re building a personal brand or business, start with Categories 1 through 4. Each section links to a deeper guide if you want the full strategy behind that category rather than just the prompts.

Will these exact prompts still work as AI models keep improving? The underlying structure — providing specific context, asking for a clear and direct output, following up rather than starting over — remains effective as models improve, even as the specific wording that produces the best results shifts somewhat with each new model generation. Revisiting and refining your most-used prompts periodically is a reasonable habit as the underlying tools evolve.

Conclusion

A good prompt is really just a clear, specific request — the templates in this guide exist to save you the time of figuring out that structure from scratch, not to replace the specific, real detail only you can provide. Used well, with genuine input and a willingness to follow up and refine, these prompts compress hours of work across content creation, job searching, business planning, and leadership preparation into minutes. Used as a copy-paste shortcut with placeholders left in, they produce exactly the generic output every guide on this site warns against.

Bookmark this page as a working reference, and dig into the deeper guides linked throughout each category when you’re ready to go beyond a single prompt into the full strategy behind it.