🧠 AI Skills Are the Next Big Thing — And Claude Just Showed Us How It’s Done

If you’re looking to automate your work using AI, don’t just prompt—teach.And the best way to teach AI? Skills.

⚙️ What Are “AI Skills”?

“AI Skills” are reusable, modular instructions that let large language models (LLMs) like Claude or ChatGPT run repeatable, defined workflows. Instead of reinventing the prompt wheel every time, you codify a task once and reuse it forever.

Examples of AI Skills:

• “Summarize meeting notes in bullet form”

• “Screen resumes against a job description”

• “Rewrite blog post for LinkedIn”

It’s like creating your own custom assistant that understands your style, process, and expectations.

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🧪 Claude Leads the Way

Anthropic’s Claude has taken the lead by making these Skills first-class citizens of their platform. Claude Skills allow you to:

• Name a task

• Describe its goal

• Add detailed instructions

• Then run it on demand, consistently

It’s an elegant implementation of a powerful concept — AI that learns your process and remembers how you like things done.

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🤖 Why AI Skills Matter

The shift here is huge:

• Before Skills: You write prompts from scratch, repeated instructions each time, and lost consistency between outputs

• Your AI becomes a personalized automation engine, not just a chatbot

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🧑‍💼 Real AI Skill Examples (People Are Already Doing This)

1. Busy Executive Assistant
Skill: “Email Digest Summarizer”
Summarizes unread emails into bullets and drafts replies.

2. Content Marketer
Skill: “Blog-to-LinkedIn Repurposer”
Turns long-form posts into carousel threads using your brand voice.

3. Recruiter or Hiring Manager
Skill: “Resume Screener”
Screens resumes against job postings with recommendations and notes.

4. Founder or Consultant
Skill: “Customer Call Debrief Generator”
Pulls insights, quotes, and next steps from transcript data.

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🛠 Sample Claude Skill: Candidate Resume Screener

You can create this Skill today using Claude or adapt it to ChatGPT or your favorite tool.

Skill Name: Candidate Resume Screener

Purpose:
Compare a candidate’s resume with a job description and provide:

• Strengths

• Gaps

• Hiring recommendation

• Suggested follow-up

Instructions (for Claude):

You are a hiring assistant.
You will receive a job description and a resume.
Your task is to:
1. Compare the resume to the role
2. Highlight 2–3 strengths
3. Note any red flags or gaps
4. Give a recommendation: Strong Yes, Yes, Maybe, or No
Respond in this format:

### Resume Review Summary

**Recommendation:**  
**Strengths:**  
- …  
- …  

**Concerns:**  
- …  

**Comments:**  
(Optional tips for what to ask in an interview)

Sample Output:

### Resume Review Summary

**Recommendation:** Maybe  
**Strengths:**  
- 3+ years with React and Node  
- AWS Certified  

**Concerns:**  
- No mention of AI/NLP  
- Gaps in recent experience  

**Comments:**  
Worth a call — shows potential but will need onboarding time.

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📈 Even OpenAI Is Catching On…

Simon Willison recently pointed out that OpenAI is quietly rolling out Skills-like functionality in ChatGPT’s CLI and file-based tools.

They’re not branding it as “Skills,” but it’s the same idea:

• Named, reusable workflows

• Modular agent-like execution

• Moving away from one-off prompting

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💡 Want to Build Your First AI Skill?

Here’s how to get started in < 10 minutes:

1. Pick a task you repeat daily (e.g. summarize a meeting, write a sales email)

2. Write down your ideal output (format, tone, key points)

3. Add a few bullet-point instructions for how the AI should behave

4. Save it as a Skill in Claude, or reuse the same structure in ChatGPT or another LLM

Do this once. Use it forever.

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🎁 Bonus Idea: Build a “Skill Stack”

Over time, you’ll end up with your own AI toolkit — a stack of automations that work like a second brain.

Some ideas:

• “Rewrite for clarity”

• “Prepare agenda from notes”

• “Draft LinkedIn comment from blog”

• “Weekly update writer”

• “Code documentation explainer”

These aren’t prompts — they’re automated playbooks. And you’re in control.

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🧠 Final Thought

AI Skills aren’t just a feature — they’re a mindset shift.

Teach your AI once, then scale yourself.

This is what real leverage looks like.

Welcome to the post-prompt world?