The AI Skills Checklist

The Goal of This Checklist

Recent data from PwC shows that employees with AI skills earn a 56% wage premium compared to their peers in the same role. But what are “AI skills”? It’s not about being a machine learning PhD. It’s about knowing how to leverage AI as a tool to be faster, smarter, and more effective in your job.

This checklist demystifies the term and gives you a concrete, actionable framework to build and showcase the skills that employers are paying a premium for.

The Four Pillars of High-Value AI Skill

Focus on developing competencies in these four key areas. For each skill, learn it, practice it, and then use the provided phrasing to showcase it on your resume, LinkedIn, and in interviews.

Pillar 1: AI for Analysis (The Synthesizer)

You are the person who uses AI to find the signal in the noise, faster than anyone else.

Skill	What It Is	How to Showcase It
Rapid Research & Summarization	Using LLMs to digest and summarize long documents, reports, or articles to get to the key insights instantly.	"Leveraged AI tools to accelerate competitive analysis, reducing research time by 40% while improving the breadth of sources."
Data Interrogation	Using AI plugins or tools to analyze datasets, identify trends, and ask natural language questions of your data.	"Employed AI-powered data analysis to identify a key trend in customer behavior, leading to a new marketing strategy."
Qualitative Data Synthesis	Feeding customer feedback, user reviews, or interview transcripts into an LLM to quickly surface major themes and sentiment.	"Synthesized over 500 customer reviews using an LLM to pinpoint the top three feature requests, informing the next product cycle."

Pillar 2: AI for Creation (The Architect)

You are the person who uses AI as a creative partner to brainstorm, prototype, and produce first drafts at high speed.

Skill	What It Is	How to Showcase It
Ideation & Brainstorming	Using AI as a sparring partner to generate a wide range of ideas, marketing angles, or solutions to a problem.	"Utilized generative AI to lead brainstorming sessions that produced a 50% increase in viable marketing concepts for the Q4 campaign."
First Draft Generation	Creating initial drafts of code, marketing copy, presentation outlines, or project plans that you then refine and perfect.	"Implemented an AI-assisted workflow for content creation, reducing first-draft time for blog posts and social media copy by 60%."
Prototyping & Visualization	Using image or diagramming AI tools to quickly create mockups, visual concepts, or process flows to communicate ideas.	"Used AI visualization tools to create rapid prototypes of new UI features, allowing for faster feedback and iteration with the design team."

Pillar 3: AI for Automation (The Optimizer)

You are the person who uses AI to eliminate tedious work, allowing you and your team to focus on high-value tasks.

Skill	What It Is	How to Showcase It
Workflow Automation	Connecting AI models to other apps (e.g., email, Slack, CRM) to automate repetitive tasks like summarizing meetings or drafting follow-ups.	"Designed and implemented an AI-powered automation that summarizes meeting transcripts and distributes action items, saving an estimated 5 hours per week for the team."
Personal Productivity Systems	Using AI to manage your own schedule, triage your inbox, or prepare you for your day by summarizing key documents and emails.	"Developed a personal AI-driven productivity system to manage information flow, resulting in a 20% increase in time spent on high-priority strategic tasks."
Process Improvement	Analyzing an existing team workflow and identifying specific steps that can be streamlined or eliminated with a targeted AI intervention.	"Initiated and led a project to integrate an AI tool into our reporting process, reducing the time to generate weekly reports from 4 hours to 15 minutes."

Pillar 4: AI Literacy & Ethics (The Steward)

*You are the trusted person on the team who understands not just how to use AI, but when and why.

Skill	What It Is	How to Showcase It
Prompt Engineering	The art and science of crafting clear, effective prompts to get the best possible output from an AI model.	"Recognized as the team's go-to expert for advanced prompt engineering, training colleagues on how to achieve more reliable and nuanced results from our AI tools."
Bias & Limitation Awareness	Knowing the common failure points of LLMs (e.g., hallucinations, biases in training data) and implementing processes to fact-check and verify AI output.	"Established a verification protocol for all AI-generated data, ensuring 100% accuracy and mitigating the risk of model hallucination in client-facing reports."
Tool Selection	Understanding the difference between various AI models and platforms, and choosing the right tool for the right task.	"Evaluated and recommended the adoption of a new AI platform for the marketing team, which was better suited for creative copy and resulted in a 25% increase in engagement."