Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
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
"If you’re like us, you’d love to have 100% of the UX talent every project needs, but your team isn’t large enough."
Patrick CommarfordDesign Staffing for Impact
January 8, 2024
"I hammer on information architecture probably more than almost any other interviewer because I believe it’s the central part of the system."
Bob BaxleyLeading with Design Operations Past and Present
December 19, 2019
"Insight practices are just getting more established and are asking questions of higher strategic value, bringing disciplines closer together."
Jemma AhmedConvergent Research Techniques in Customer Journey Mapping
March 31, 2020
"We’re not building to build, we’re building to learn."
Maria SkaadenContinuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
November 8, 2018
"It’s important not to seek control but understanding."
Aditi Ruiz Christian Crumlish Farid SabitovA PM State of Mind: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 1
December 6, 2022
"High-fidelity maps often squash discussion. Rough maps invite it."
Joe ElmendorfShitty Maps: A Trojan Horse for Sensemaking
July 9, 2026
"How am I supposed to do that? is a good question to reflect impracticality without defensive triggers."
Joshua GravesWe Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
May 12, 2025
"While people care about collaboration, it’s not always at the top of the to-do list."
Jemma Ahmed Subhasree Chatterjee Robert Fabricant Alexandra Jayeun Lee Ben RobinsCollaboration: learning from other fields beyond our own [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
August 7, 2024
"As the keepers and gatherers of knowledge, we empower others by sharing and sometimes over-sharing communications."
Kate Koch Jean-Claire FitschenFlex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
September 29, 2021