Summary
Onboarding new employees to your team is all too often treated as an afterthought, or best case, as an at-the-moment-thought. Employees deserve a well-thought out experience that includes them from the very beginning–from the creation of the position description—to that time after they’ve become integrated into our teams and organizations. We can trace some of these imperfect scenarios all the way back to the creation our performance profiles or position descriptions, and how they were created. When we understand the entire journey from candidate to employee we see the value of treating onboarding as an ending of a particular process instead of a solitary event in time.
Key Insights
-
•
Traditional job descriptions focus on tasks rather than measurable performance outcomes, limiting effective hiring.
-
•
Performance profiles clarify what success looks like and help teams agree on hiring criteria, leading to better candidate matches.
-
•
Structured interview guides aligned with performance profiles ensure consistent, fair, and relevant candidate assessments.
-
•
Unpaid design exercises or take-home tasks can exclude qualified candidates with caregiving or other external responsibilities.
-
•
The candidate experience after the interview and before the start date is often neglected, causing anxiety and disengagement.
-
•
Maintaining personal contact with candidates post-offer fosters comfort and commitment before they begin.
-
•
First day onboarding should be treated as a commencement event, not a paperwork marathon, reducing overwhelm.
-
•
Buddy systems provide critical social and informational support, improving new hire adjustment and retention.
-
•
Assigning safe internal projects early helps new hires gain practical familiarity without pressure.
-
•
Onboarding should be considered a multi-touch ecosystem involving ongoing feedback, communication, and adaptation.
Notable Quotes
"If you really care about success, you define it first and hire against performance, not just experience."
"Manhole cover questions belong in the past. Focus on real skills and relevant experience instead."
"Unpaid design exercises are unfair because they don’t take into account people's real-life constraints."
"Waiting and vague communication during hiring is a painful guessing game for candidates."
"The post-offer period isn’t HR’s alone; hiring teams must stay in touch and keep the candidate engaged."
"Day one is a commencement, a graduation from candidate to employee, not a paperwork slog."
"Buddy systems create leadership opportunities and a support network without changing org charts."
"Internal projects give new hires a safe place to learn how the organization functions without fear of breaking things."
"Hiring managers should facilitate hiring decisions but truly rely on the team members who work daily with the candidate."
"Onboarding isn’t a single event or process, it’s an ecosystem with many touchpoints impacting the new employee experience."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"A single line of UI text might be a small ask but can have massive impact on customer understanding and experience."
Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
June 11, 2021
"When you touch this vulnerability, people feel this ira comfort. I went through that myself."
Steve PortigalWar Stories LIVE! Steve Portigal
March 30, 2020
"Decision makers often have to try to piece all the pieces of the puzzle together themselves."
Brad Peters Anne MamaghaniShort Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"We found out there wasn’t just one best in class solution and needed a hybrid approach."
Anna AvrekhUser Research, Design, and Product - A Love Story
March 11, 2021
"Launching something small at MasterCard is inherently huge because of our global scale and complex partnerships."
Todd Healy Jess GrecoDriving Change with CX Metrics
June 7, 2023
"Awareness of positionality is the first step toward ethical change in research."
Bilan HashiThe Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
March 10, 2021
"Too often research lives in silos, making it hard to connect the dots across streams."
Jake BurghardtStop wasting research: Unlock more value from research insights
June 24, 2025
"Design definitely has a seat at the table. It may not be the most comfortable seat, but it is there."
Bob BaxleyTheme 4: Intro
January 8, 2024
"Civic stamina is the grind of hearing no a lot while pushing toward yes."
Juhan SoninDesign Now! The Agenda for Action
September 4, 2025
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How does shifting organizational language from AI as a tool to AI as a way of working reflect cultural maturity?
How prevalent are explicit standards of design quality within design teams compared to engineering standards?
How does testing accessibility at the component level improve overall product accessibility?