Emails, reports, minutes: structure, tone, clarity, audience, calls to action.
Before starting, we run a 1-minute tech check — microphone, ambient noise, connection. If your setup isn't good enough, the test is fully refunded.
Prove that your emails, reports, and meeting notes actually move things forward — not just fill inboxes.
The Professional Written Communication badge tests your ability to produce workplace writing that delivers results: a difficult email structured to preserve the relationship, meeting minutes that replace the follow-up meeting, a report that convinces an executive team without drowning them in detail. The 15-minute AI-led oral exam digs into your real methods: how you craft a subject line, how you shift tone and register depending on the audience, how you decide between a Slack message and a formal email, and how you use AI writing tools critically without losing your editorial voice.
What sets this badge apart from a self-declared LinkedIn skill is the depth of the conversation. The AI examiner doesn't ask you to recite writing tips — it pushes you to walk through real situations, defend your structural and tonal choices, and explain why you sometimes pick up the phone instead of typing. A second AI model (Claude Opus) then reads the full transcript and produces a 0-100 score with a certified level — Novice, Proficient, Advanced, or Expert — plus a detailed report pinpointing your strengths and the specific areas where your written communication could sharpen up.
This badge is for anyone whose writing is a daily work tool: managers who run their teams through email, project leads who live in status reports, consultants whose deliverables are documents, executive assistants who write on behalf of others, or candidates who want to prove a skill that employers value but rarely know how to test. If you write a lot and want that to show, this badge is for you.
Here are the concrete dimensions the AI examines during the 15-minute oral.
Building an email, report, or set of minutes with clear internal logic: a strong opening, a body organized into scannable blocks, and an unambiguous call to action. The AI evaluates whether you know how to prioritize information based on urgency and stakes.
Adjusting detail level, vocabulary, and framing depending on whether you're writing for an executive committee, a technical team, or an external client. The examiner will ask you to walk through what concretely changes from one audience to another.
Writing a refusal, delivering bad news, or redirecting a colleague in writing — the AI probes your ability to stay direct without being blunt, maintain the professional relationship, and avoid the kind of ambiguity that triggers misreading and escalation.
Good professional writing generates a specific response or action. The examiner tests your method for writing CTAs that are clear, time-bound, and unambiguous — whether it's a follow-up email or the recommendations section of a report.
Knowing the difference between useful meeting notes and a verbatim transcript, structuring a report so it serves as a decision-making reference rather than mandatory reading: the AI evaluates your understanding of formats, synthesis levels, and editorial choices.
Knowing when NOT to write is a skill in itself. The examiner explores your ability to choose between email, instant messaging, a shared doc, or a call — and to avoid the endless written threads that bury useful information under noise.
ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini: the AI evaluates your ability to use these tools thoughtfully — to speed up a first draft, soften an overly blunt tone, or check readability — without outsourcing editorial judgment or losing your authentic voice.
Short sentences, white space, precise vocabulary without unnecessary jargon: the examiner tests your stylistic awareness and your ability to self-edit and trim. Readability isn't cosmetic — it's what determines whether your message gets read or skimmed past.
Final scoring is performed by Claude (Anthropic), which reads back the full transcript and applies this weighted criteria grid.
Is the message immediately understandable? Is information logically prioritized? Does the candidate demonstrate a structured approach suited to the format (email, report, minutes) and to the communication stakes at hand?
Do register, level of detail, and framing shift meaningfully depending on the recipient? Can the candidate calibrate relational distance and empathy in difficult situations such as rejections, bad news, or redirecting a colleague in writing?
Are calls to action clearly formulated? Do the minutes and reports the candidate describes actually drive decisions forward? Does the candidate measure the concrete impact their writing has on the people receiving it?
Does the candidate know when to write and when not to? Do they distinguish clearly between a formal email, a Teams message, and a shared document? Do they avoid unproductive written exchanges and the endless email chains that dilute important information?
Does the candidate use AI assistants (ChatGPT, Copilot, etc.) thoughtfully in their writing workflow? Do they understand the limits — particularly around tone, authenticity, and the risks of sharing sensitive company data with third-party models?
A Plume session takes about 20 minutes, from tech check to badge delivery.
Before the exam starts, Plume checks that your microphone is working and your connection is solid. No software to install — everything runs in your browser. Make sure you're in a quiet space with notifications silenced.
The AI examiner invites you to introduce yourself briefly and set the scene: your current role, the volume and type of professional writing you produce day-to-day. This step calibrates the rest of the conversation to your actual work context.
The AI works through 5 to 7 open-ended questions about your real practice: a difficult email you wrote, your method for producing useful meeting minutes, how you adapt your register for different audiences, or how you actually use AI writing assistants in your workflow. It follows up on details to get past surface-level answers.
The examiner asks you to identify your own blind spots: a situation where you misjudged your tone, an email you'd write differently today, or a boundary you've set around using AI tools for writing. The ability to self-assess critically is factored into the final score.
Claude Opus reads the full transcript and produces a 0-100 score, a certified level (Novice to Expert), and a detailed report with your strengths and specific areas for growth. The badge is immediately shareable on LinkedIn or via URL.
Your score out of 100 translates into a level a recruiter can grasp at a glance.
You write emails and meeting notes intuitively, without a consistent method. Your messages convey information but often lack a clear structure or an explicit call to action. You haven't yet developed a deliberate practice around adapting to different audiences or choosing the right channel for a given situation.
You apply basic writing best practices: a descriptive subject line, a structured body, a CTA at the end of the message. You broadly adapt your register to the recipient, but you still hesitate in sensitive situations (refusals, bad news) and don't yet have a systematic approach to minutes or longer reports.
You have a clear and repeatable method for each written format. You know how to calibrate tone in complex situations, structure a report so it genuinely drives decisions, and choose the right channel without second-guessing yourself. You use AI writing tools critically to speed up your output without outsourcing editorial judgment.
Writing is a strategic lever in your work. You anticipate the relational and decisional impact of every message, you write for multiple audiences with natural fluency, and you coach or mentor others on their professional writing. Your perspective on AI's role in workplace writing is nuanced, grounded, and informed by practical experience.
No degree or years of experience required to take the badge. Here are the profiles it makes the most sense for.
You manage a large part of your team through writing: briefs, meeting notes, written feedback. This badge proves that your written communication is a management tool that works, not a source of confusion or information overload for the people you're trying to move forward.
Your written deliverables — status reports, steering committee notes, project briefs — are the backbone of your projects. The badge shows that you produce writing that moves information without creating noise, and that genuinely supports decision-making at every level.
Your recommendations are only as strong as their presentation. This badge proves you can structure a consulting report that a client reads without needing the backstory, and adapt your tone between a technical counterpart and a senior decision-maker who just needs the bottom line.
Professional writing isn't taught in school. This badge lets you show from day one that you understand the codes of workplace writing — subject lines, openings, CTAs, register — and that you won't send your colleagues 800-word emails when three lines would do.
You often write on behalf of others — invitations, minutes, correspondence — and you juggle very different registers depending on the sender and the audience. This badge recognizes that editorial versatility and your ability to represent someone else's voice accurately in writing.
Where and how your Professional Written Communication badge will help you day to day.
You're applying for a project management or consulting role where written communication is explicitly listed in the job description. Sharing your badge URL gives the hiring manager concrete evidence of your skill level where other candidates just check a box on their resume.
You want to make the case for a promotion or a role change and need to demonstrate your soft skills in a credible way. The badge report includes an evaluation of your editorial judgment and audience adaptation — two criteria that almost never get measured in standard performance reviews.
You're moving into a new sector and want to show that your transferable skills — including professional writing — are real and evaluated, not just listed on a LinkedIn profile. The badge provides a credible signal even without sector-specific experience on your resume.
Your Upwork, Malt, or LinkedIn profile needs to stand out. Displaying a Professional Written Communication Expert badge reassures potential clients that you can handle written exchanges, deliverables, and meeting follow-ups autonomously and professionally.
An L&D manager or HR business partner takes the badge to benchmark their own level before designing an internal written communication training. The detailed report gives them a concrete baseline and helps identify which dimensions to prioritize for their team.
You're targeting a more senior role that involves writing for the executive team or managing external client relationships. The badge lets you demonstrate internally that you already have the required level — without waiting for someone to give you the opportunity to prove it on the job.
A few minutes to check you have everything you need.
At the end of your session you don't just get a score — here's everything that awaits you.
You get a precise score and an official level (Novice, Proficient, Advanced, Expert) based on Claude Opus's full analysis of your transcript — not a multiple-choice quiz, but an evaluation of your thinking in real professional situations.
The report identifies your strengths (structure, tone calibration, readability) and your specific areas for improvement based on how you actually communicate in writing. It's the kind of precise feedback you almost never get in a normal work environment.
The audio from your oral exam is stored privately and securely. You can replay it to analyze how you talk about your own writing methods — a useful exercise for sharpening the way you communicate your written communication skills in future interviews.
Your Professional Written Communication badge lives at a unique URL you can drop into your LinkedIn profile, portfolio, email signature, or job application. Anyone who clicks it sees your score, your certified level, and the validation date.
Discover related skills you can validate with Plume.
A 15-min oral exam with an AI, a shareable badge for your recruiters.
Choose this badge · €19.99
