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
"Fear of losing your livelihood drives people to work longer hours and avoid asking for support."
Alla WeinbergPeople Are Sick of Change: Psychological Safety is the Cure
July 20, 2023
"I prefer to shine a light on others rather than be in the spotlight myself."
Kristin SkinnerTheme 2: Introduction and Provocation
January 8, 2024
"Scaling communities is about propagation, not just growing as big as possible."
James LangIf you can design an app, you can design a community
May 22, 2025
"Changing a biased design isn’t just changing features—it requires changing the entire design process and culture."
Sandra CamachoCreating More Bias-Proof Designs
January 22, 2025
"Trauma should not be reduced to a right of passage that justifies participation in research."
Sahibzada MayedThe Politics of Radical Research: A Manifesto
March 27, 2023
"Stories are how we make meaning of life, explain how things work, and justify our decisions."
Bilan HashiThe Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
March 10, 2021
"A user-centered measurement should not be one dimensional because people are complex."
Alberto FerreiraMaking it Count: Developing a custom digital metric framework that works
October 15, 2021
"Sponsor sessions are not sales pitches; they are super similar to the quality of the main conference session."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
October 1, 2021
"No matter how good I am at my job, it doesn’t make me a good parent. What makes a good parent is time, love, compassion, and a sense of humor."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 3, 2019