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
"Retrospectives are a great place to have direct, kind conversations that come from caring."
Daniel OrbachZero to One: Co-Creating Operating Models with your Team
September 23, 2024
"The relationship with AI is like having a gopher or minion — don’t give it the final decision."
Louis Rosenfeld Billy Carlson Jon Fukuda Maria TaylorHow AI will Change DesignOps Tooling
October 3, 2023
"Butter is about consistently showing up and being present so people don’t forget you."
Deirdre Hirschtritt Cesar Paredes Marie PerrotResearch is Only as Good as the Relationships You Build
November 17, 2022
"We built on whatever we could find, including technical APIs and even paper forms that had already simplified processes."
Magdalena ZadaraZero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
November 16, 2022
"By intentionally connecting the user outcomes we’re looking for with a business outcome via a structured hypothesis, designers can start considering the wider business impact."
Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim ParmeeShort Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"Create a storyboard or journey map of the ideal experience and use that as inspiration."
JD Buckley Margot Dear Jim Kalbach Janaki KumarCOMMUNICATE: Discussion
June 14, 2018
"Mountain climbing feels like an appropriate metaphor to describe our practice because it takes agility, goal setting, and peripheral vision."
John CalhounHave we Reached Our Peak? Spotting the Next Mountain For DesignOps to Climb
October 1, 2021
"A core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans."
Amy ThibodeauOpening Keynote: Process and Ambiguity
October 23, 2019
"We created recruitment events for underrepresented groups because it was harder for them to get permission and sign up in time otherwise."
Kara KaneCommunities of Practice for Civic Design
April 7, 2022
