Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
Summary
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
"Collaboration with peers and speaker coaches creates better content and stronger relationships beyond the conference."
Louis Rosenfeld Jemma Ahmed Christian Crumlish Uday Gajendar Chris GeisonCoffee with Lou #3: What Makes for a Successful UX Conference Presentation?
May 2, 2024
"You can’t escape existential matters; you need to confront them head on to unleash the power of storytelling."
Jon FukudaStorytelling for DesignOps
August 17, 2023
"The incentive structure at a big company is set up to reward people for entirely different stuff than innovation requires."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"People care about titles way too much. I had a guy whose business card said star-bellied sneak—love that."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"The V2MOM stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures and is a framework every Salesforce employee uses."
Kim Holt Emma Wylds Pearl Koppenhaver Maisee XiongA Salesforce Panel Discussion on Values-Driven DesignOps
September 8, 2022
"Making friends will help you in all sorts of ways. Relationship building has been about 75% of the game in my job."
Amy Gawronski ZuccaroAdvice for DesignOps Employee #1
September 29, 2021
"We can use mental model skylines with thinking styles to find support gaps we didn’t see before."
Indi YoungThinking styles: Mend hidden cracks in your market
January 8, 2025
"Design managers can see how much budget has been used versus project progress to make evidence-based decisions."
Kristin Sundermeyer Tygre MorehartDesign Ops Metrics
September 30, 2021
"Scanner Pro automatically corrects perspective and applies filters, making scanning with a phone fast and high quality."
Jorge ArangoThe Best of Both Worlds: How to Integrate Paper and Digital Notes (1st of 3 seminars)
April 5, 2024
