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
"Most requests started reactive but evolved into more strategic metric definitions."
Sarah CoyleDesign and Analytics with Sarah Coyle
July 30, 2020
"The agents are brutally honest with their feedback, which helps us prioritize features that actually matter to them."
Caitlyn Hampton Monica Lee Jina YoonCompass 101: Growing Your Career In A Startup World
June 11, 2021
"Our design ops team was a step behind the growth of our design team, solving the wrong problems at the wrong scale."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024
"What we underestimate is that enterprise work is essentially culture change, not just design work."
Ted Booth Sam Ladner Fredrik Matheson Russ UngerDiscussion
June 8, 2016
"We’ve worked with over 1100 contributors, focusing on inclusion, iteration, and collaboration."
Louis Rosenfeld Peter Van DijckGenAI for UXers: A Rosenbot Demo and Discussion
September 11, 2025
"Everyone needs permission from their manager and leaders to truly care about research outside of their job description."
Crystal YanBuilding a Customer-Centric Culture
March 30, 2020
"China blew up one of their satellites with a missile, creating tons of debris, proving they can threaten our satellites."
Michal Anne RogondinoSaving Outer Space: The First UX Design System for Our Nation’s Satellites
January 8, 2024
"Evan actually spent less than 15 minutes on the essay, and instead of working on homework, he was writing a letter to his significant other back home in Detroit."
Sarah GallimoreInspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future
November 18, 2022
"You either give money as an unprofessional civilian or you do your job and offer professional services to help the crisis."
Xenia Adjoubei Sean BruceEmpowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
March 29, 2023
