Claude for Professionals Beginner Training Course

This beginner's Claude workshop is aimed at professionals in any function who are new to Claude or have only tried it a few times and want to use it well at work. It is especially suited to:

• Managers and team leaders

• Administrators, assistants and office managers

• Marketing, communications, sales and customer-facing staff

• HR, finance and operations staff

• Project coordinators and anyone who writes, summarises or prepares information every day

You will get the most out of this course if you have everyday experience with web browsers, email and office productivity / document writing software.

For the hands-on practical exercises, you will need:

• A Claude account. Some features used or demonstrated during the workshop depend on your Claude plan and your organisation's settings. If your organisation manages Claude, check that the capabilities required for practical exercises are available.

• Check with your organisation which Claude accounts are approved for work information. The course uses practice material and non-confidential examples of your own, so no confidential data is needed.

• A laptop with a current browser. The Claude desktop app is optional.

• A spreadsheet application such as Excel, for the data session.

This Beginner Claude course is available for private / custom delivery for your team - as an in-house face-to-face workshop at your location of choice, or as online instructor-led training via MS Teams (or your own preferred platform).

Get in touch to find out how we can deliver tailored training which focuses on your project requirements and learning goals.

Welcome and orientation

Understand how the workshop will run and the principle that underpins the day: Claude can draft, analyse and suggest, but you remain responsible for checking and deciding.

What Claude can and cannot do

Understand how Claude works, the kinds of tasks it handles well, and where it can go wrong, including confident mistakes, invented details and outdated information.

Try it: Test Claude with a question from your own field and identify what it gets right, wrong or leaves out.

Setting up Claude and working safely

Explore the main settings and capabilities available in Claude, including memory and account controls. Establish some simple ground rules for using AI appropriately with workplace information.

Try it: Review your Claude settings and create three practical rules for using it at work.

Prompting that works: GCES

Use the Goal, Context, Expectations, Source (GCES) method to structure effective prompts. Learn how to provide useful context, specify the result you want, surface assumptions and improve an answer through conversation.

Try it: Rewrite a vague request using GCES and compare the results.

Working with your documents

Use Claude with reports, contracts, emails, spreadsheets and images to summarise information, identify decisions, actions and risks, and locate supporting evidence. Learn how to verify Claude’s answers against the original material.

Try it: Analyse a sample report, extract key information and verify Claude’s supporting quotations.

Drafting and editing in your own voice

Draft and improve emails, notes, plans and posts for a particular audience and purpose. Explore custom styles and learn how to change tone and structure while keeping important facts intact.

Try it: Create a style from your own writing and compare it with Claude’s default approach.

Research and current information

Use web search and Research for questions requiring current information or wider investigation. Learn how to examine Claude’s sources, identify weak evidence and verify important claims.

Try it: Research a business question, inspect the sources and check some of Claude’s conclusions.

Working with spreadsheets and data

Analyse spreadsheets and CSV files to find totals, patterns and outliers, create charts and explain findings in plain English. Understand how to inspect Claude’s method and independently check important calculations.

Try it: Analyse a sample dataset, create a chart and verify one of the calculations yourself.

Creating useful Artifacts

Turn your work into reusable outputs such as summaries, checklists, forms and simple calculators. Refine an Artifact through conversation and understand the implications of sharing it.

Try it: Build something useful and learn how to refine/share it.

Projects: stop starting from scratch

Use Projects to bring instructions, reference documents and related work together. Apply GCES to your project instructions and explore how a simple Project can provide useful context across related conversations.

Try it: Create a simple Project for a recurring task and see what Claude can carry across separate chats.

Using Claude responsibly

Develop practical habits around confidentiality, accuracy, bias, transparency and verification. Consider organisational AI policies and the risks associated with untrusted documents, web content and sensitive information.

Try it: Assess what information is safe to upload, what should be anonymised and what should stay out of Claude altogether.

Your own task from start to finish

Bring everything together by applying Claude to a real, non-confidential task from your working week. Plan it using GCES, complete it, check the result and capture anything worth reusing.

Try it: Complete your task end to end and record the prompt, the checks you made and the potential time saving.

Your first 30 days with Claude

Finish with a practical plan for putting the day's learning into use: choose the first tasks you will try, decide what you will always check and identify where to go when you are unsure.

1. Who is this Claude workshop for?

This workshop is designed for people who are new to Claude, or who have experimented with it but want a more structured and reliable way to use it at work. No previous AI experience is required.

2. Do I need any technical or programming experience?

No. The workshop is aimed at everyday business users rather than developers. You'll work with familiar tasks such as documents, emails, research and spreadsheets, with practical exercises throughout the day.

3. Do I need a Claude account?

Yes, you'll need access to Claude to take part in the hands-on exercises. Some features covered may depend on your Claude plan or on settings controlled by your organisation, so you won't necessarily need access to every feature to benefit from the workshop.

4. Is this suitable if I've already used Claude or other AI tools?

Yes. If you've experimented with Claude but still use it mainly for occasional prompts and individual tasks, this course will give you a more systematic foundation. If you already use structured prompts, regularly work with files and confidently check Claude's output, our Intermediate Claude course may be more appropriate.

5. Is the workshop specific to Claude, or is the learning useful with other AI tools?

The practical work uses Claude and explores Claude-specific features such as Projects and Artifacts. However, many of the underlying skills, including giving effective instructions, supplying context, checking evidence and verifying AI-generated output, are transferable to other generative AI tools.

6. Will I learn how to write better prompts?

Yes. You'll use the GCES method: Goal, Context, Expectations and Source as a practical framework for writing prompts. You'll also learn how to improve results through follow-up questions and refinement rather than trying to create the perfect prompt first time.

7. Can I use examples from my own work?

Yes, and the workshop finishes by applying what you've learned to one of your own tasks. You should only use information that your organisation permits you to share with Claude; confidential or sensitive material should not be used simply for the purposes of the course.

8. Does the workshop cover safe and responsible use of AI?

Yes. Rather than treating responsible AI as a separate theoretical topic, the workshop builds verification, confidentiality and human judgement into the practical exercises. You'll also consider accuracy, bias, transparency and what information should or shouldn't be uploaded.

9. What will I be able to do after the workshop?

You should leave able to use Claude more confidently for tasks such as drafting and editing, document analysis, research and working with data. You'll also know how to structure better prompts, check Claude's output, use Projects for recurring work and identify tasks where AI can genuinely save you time.

10. Can this workshop be tailored for our organisation?

Yes. For private team delivery, examples and exercises can be adapted to suit your organisation, roles and typical use cases. The instructor can also take account of your own AI policies or guidelines so that the techniques taught reflect how your team is expected to use AI at work.

• Claude Help Center
  Anthropic's official help and guidance covering getting started, Projects, files, privacy, Team and Enterprise features and more. It's probably the best general "continue learning after the course" link.

• Claude Artifacts: official guidance
  A useful companion to the Artifacts section of the workshop, explaining what Artifacts are, how they can be created and edited, and the capabilities available on different Claude plans.

• ICO guidance on AI and data protection
  Particularly relevant to the responsible-use part of the workshop. It covers accountability, transparency, lawfulness and fairness where AI systems process personal data. The ICO currently notes that the guidance is under review following legislative changes, which is another good reason to link to the live resource rather than paraphrase it on the course page.

• ICO AI guidance and practical resources
  A broader collection of practical AI resources from the UK regulator, including guidance, AI auditing material and resources around generative AI.

• NCSC Guidelines for Secure AI System Development
  UK National Cyber Security Centre guidance on using and developing AI securely, covering areas such as sensitive data, threat modelling, secure deployment and operation. It's more organisational than beginner-level, but makes a good authoritative follow-on resource for business customers.