What Is The Fastest Way to Onboard A New Hire?
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Matt Lewers: Hey, everyone.
Matt Lewers: Welcome back to another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable series. Today, Krissy and I and maybe a guest surprise, we’re not sure, we’ll be describing what’s the fastest way to effectively onboard a new hire. Krissy, I’ll kick it to you first.
Krissy Manzano: I feel like you have a really good insight into this. Do you want to answer first? Or do you want me to answer first?
Matt Lewers: Oh, I can take the first stab at it. It’s been a little while since I’ve had to do that.Ultimately, I think the best way to onboard a new hire, it’s really going to depend on their background, their level, whether they’ve got industry experience or holistic experience to the role they’re moving in.
Matt Lewers: But what I found is the faster you can get individuals shadowing peers in the real day to day thick of it, whether it’s some type of operation or process, or if it’s shadowing calls or a mix of the two, that has always been whenever I’ve pulled. People going through some type of new hire onboarding class, that’s always been the number one most effective thing.
Matt Lewers: So, basically, you can do it via Zoom or if you can do it in person, even better, but shadowing somebody going through live fire scenarios has, has typically been the best. I think, a lot of times, onboarding programs take a little too long to get there. It’s like the end of week two, sometimes the start of week three.
Matt Lewers: I really think that should be supplemented from day one, outside of, they can always study up on the industry, the value props, the products, things of that nature, in tandem, but the first week doesn’t need to be fluff where they’re sitting in siloed recorded trainings, or meeting with people that aren’t in the seat that they’re actively stepping into.
Matt Lewers: So that, that would be my advice. I think there’s other things you can do to help people get there. If they’re not, if they’re transitioning industries, let’s say somebody’s moving from FinTech to MarTech, you know, if you’ve got books or, or blogs or podcasts, whether it’s something drawn up, maybe the CEO wrote a book, or maybe it’s just an external pod, podcast by an external party, right?
Matt Lewers: That covers everything in this scenario, MarTech, it’d be good to just provide that to them as soon as they sign the offer letter with no expectation that they’re actually going to sit down and read everything or listen to everything. But I think you’ll find individuals that want to succeed, I would love to devour some of that information that helps make a transition into a different industry easier instead of assigning that stuff as a nice to have week two to, you know, day 60.
Matt Lewers: You can get them sort of advanced and prepped up that way. So I know that’s kind of high level, a couple of ideas. I’ll kick it to you, Krissy, and then I can tie us off at the end.
Krissy Manzano: So I think that there’s 2, there’s 2 things to effectively onboard someone quickly, like, to get them up to speed. Number one, when we talk about recruiting and hiring, that includes onboarding. And if you have a way that you want to hire someone, and you are not, and that’s not all aligned with your onboarding and I’ll explain what I mean by that. That’s where a lot of things miss the mark. So I say that because a lot of times people are like, I want to self starter, there’s nothing wrong with that. By the way, I want to self starter. I want someone who can hit the ground running.
Krissy Manzano: And a lot of times what they mean by that though, is I want someone who doesn’t need onboarding. But I’ll have onboarding there. It’s like those, those things aren’t aligned, right? Like this, this idea, like, no one really wants to take the time to train people, which ultimately is why so many individuals fail, right? They want, that’s why you focus on experience over skills and behaviors, because you’re hoping that experience will make someone do well.
Krissy Manzano: And so I think if you care about onboarding, then you need that to be aligned for what you’re assessing through the interview process. So you can make sure that it’s set up to actually help those people. Like, actually take advantage of those skills, right? That you were assessing for to get them up to speed. Right? Is the first piece and kind of high level. And then the 2nd piece is you’ve got to have like, clear outcomes that you want to achieve. So it’s 1 thing to have a schedule that’s organized, which is great. And you need that. But if it’s just like, okay, they shadow here, they shadow there. It’s like, what do you by the end of month one, what do you want them to have achieved?
Krissy Manzano: Right? So that’s how you can really tell, like, within the first 90 days, you should be able to understand what someone is capable of, like, in action, right? Separate from the interview. So, hey, in month 2, it might make sense for them to start showing that they can build pipeline and be on discovery calls. And so, give them a pipeline target. And these are things that you don’t have to do individually. Like, you can create it 1 time, but I think, you know, what are the skills and behaviors that are gonna make someone successful in this role? And then those are the things you really want to elevate during onboarding, right?
Krissy Manzano: So we need people that are really good at active listening and asking discovery questions. Well, they need to, you know, have that chance to do that within the first 30 days over and over again, from shadowing to, you know, driving some of the conversations with potential prospects. Or, you know, with their clients, whatever role you’re in, you know, we’re talking about sales in this example, but it’s kind of my two cents on the matter. Emily, what do you think?
Emily Bell: I mean I would say process is so important. It doesn’t have to be Incredibly intricate. It doesn’t have to be with like a Fortune 500 company, but having some sort of process for new hires to follow is very important because I think it allows you as the company to measure whether or not this person is actually going to be able to be successful in the role much quicker than.
Emily Bell: Maybe the first quarter after they are ramped, and maybe they don’t hit quota. You’re able to really standardize that approach and understand. We actually saw some red flags, in, in the onboarding process compared to what our expectation was the 2nd piece is for individuals. Having some sort of onboarding process that you can follow helps you ramp very quickly and ultimately be better prepared to hit your number, which if you’re in that role, that that’s really the most important thing is what what can you do to expedite your ability to start closing revenue?
Emily Bell: And onboarding is really critical to that. And having a process is the only way to standardize that and standardize the experience across everyone that’s entering into the organization. So, I would say, even if it’s simple, even if it’s just 30 days, having some form of process that everybody knows about, and that is also something that continues to evolve is really important to have, especially in early growth,
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I think, I think that’s spot on. I think one thing came to me and I’m a much more tactically minded individual, hearing you two talk that.
Krissy Manzano: Yes, you are.
Matt Lewers: hear about the strategy. Yeah. I think one thing that I, one thing that always resonated well for the three of us when we worked at two of our three previous stints in ICA and leadership roles, there, and it really, even like the larger the company, sometimes the better here, but I think when you introduce individual contributors specifically to the leaders of other departments and orgs, I think that goes a long way in helping them, both parties establish trust in each other, the right, and the, and what those roles and responsibilities are.
Matt Lewers: John Gleeson, name shout out, did a great job of this with, with CSMs while we were all at Motive. And he made, he carved out time to meet everybody one on one and he, he had rules of engagement clearly outlined so that everybody knew from day one, this is my role versus my responsibility versus my counterpart in another department.
Matt Lewers: And when you scale that out across, you know, marketing, product, sales engineering, if it exists, BDR, SDR leadership, CS. You know, you can empower somebody within week one to feel confident that, hey, if I have questions for another department, I’ve already been in contact in a, in a quick one on one or introduction with leaders of those other departments.
Matt Lewers: And the sooner somebody is comfortable, with, with being able to do that, I think the sooner they’re going to settle into the seat and feel confident when it’s time to hit the ground running. So that’s, you know, if I’m gonna give out my tactical tips and tricks, that’s 1, I would, I would recommend anybody, regardless of the size of the organization. But that’s something that has gone a long way in the past.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. I think those are all great tips and can be helpful, you know, onboard onboarding matters. And I think there’s, there’s no way to get around it, but. It’s something that makes a difference and, you know, it also will engage your employee, right? Like, to, to be in it for if that this is where a lot of employees start to also make their exit to some extent, like, Oh, what I’m seeing, I don’t like, cause like no one’s talking to me or like helping me.
Krissy Manzano: So I think in this new world, I used to not be that way, but now with so many opportunities, and it’s still really competitive, it’s important from an experience standpoint, obviously different company sizes are, are going to provide different experiences and you should make sure that, you know, organization, an organization is aligned with like what a candidate can actually do and what their expectations are for that onboarding experience. But all that to say, I think that these are great tips.
Matt Lewers: Krissy, don’t you worry about this outro. I, what I’d like to say to our listeners, those of you out there, if you have questions or need help either reviewing a current onboarding, process or outline or you’re looking for advice. Any of us are more than happy to do it.
Matt Lewers: We’ve all crafted it both for companies we’ve worked at. And then, from a third party consulting type standpoint as well, happy to hop on a call and help anybody that needs it. That’s all the time we have for today. Thanks for listening. We look forward to having your ears next time and shout out to our special guest, Emily.
Matt Lewers: Appreciate you showing up.
Krissy Manzano: Thanks you all. We almost made it to under 10 minutes, but Matt couldn’t help himself. So
Matt Lewers: That was one of the best outros we’ve ever had.
Krissy Manzano: See you later.
Episode Summary
Nothing is more important then getting a new hire up to speed, to hit the ground running as soon as possible. But how you do this and what is expected from the new hire is often where opinions and results vary. And that’s this week’s question on the Blueprint Roundtable – “What is the quickest way to effectively onboard a new hire?”
Join Krissy, Matt, and Emily as they share their perspectives with solid tips and best practices that are guaranteed to get your new hires in a position for success.
While role and seniority are certainly factors, but the real game-changer lies in knowing how to evaluate skills and behaviors throughout the hiring process. This understanding is the key to consistently achieving excellent and realistic results for every hire, every time.
*DO NOT USE OR REMOVE*
Transcript
Matt Lewers: Welcome back to another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable series. Today, Krissy and I and maybe a guest surprise, we’re not sure, we’ll be describing what’s the fastest way to effectively onboard a new hire. Krissy, I’ll kick it to you first.
Krissy Manzano: I feel like you have a really good insight into this. Do you want to answer first? Or do you want me to answer first?
Matt Lewers: Oh, I can take the first stab at it. It’s been a little while since I’ve had to do that.Ultimately, I think the best way to onboard a new hire, it’s really going to depend on their background, their level, whether they’ve got industry experience or holistic experience to the role they’re moving in.
Matt Lewers: But what I found is the faster you can get individuals shadowing peers in the real day to day thick of it, whether it’s some type of operation or process, or if it’s shadowing calls or a mix of the two, that has always been whenever I’ve pulled. People going through some type of new hire onboarding class, that’s always been the number one most effective thing.
Matt Lewers: So, basically, you can do it via Zoom or if you can do it in person, even better, but shadowing somebody going through live fire scenarios has, has typically been the best. I think, a lot of times, onboarding programs take a little too long to get there. It’s like the end of week two, sometimes the start of week three.
Matt Lewers: I really think that should be supplemented from day one, outside of, they can always study up on the industry, the value props, the products, things of that nature, in tandem, but the first week doesn’t need to be fluff where they’re sitting in siloed recorded trainings, or meeting with people that aren’t in the seat that they’re actively stepping into.
Matt Lewers: So that, that would be my advice. I think there’s other things you can do to help people get there. If they’re not, if they’re transitioning industries, let’s say somebody’s moving from FinTech to MarTech, you know, if you’ve got books or, or blogs or podcasts, whether it’s something drawn up, maybe the CEO wrote a book, or maybe it’s just an external pod, podcast by an external party, right?
Matt Lewers: That covers everything in this scenario, MarTech, it’d be good to just provide that to them as soon as they sign the offer letter with no expectation that they’re actually going to sit down and read everything or listen to everything. But I think you’ll find individuals that want to succeed, I would love to devour some of that information that helps make a transition into a different industry easier instead of assigning that stuff as a nice to have week two to, you know, day 60.
Matt Lewers: You can get them sort of advanced and prepped up that way. So I know that’s kind of high level, a couple of ideas. I’ll kick it to you, Krissy, and then I can tie us off at the end.
Krissy Manzano: So I think that there’s 2, there’s 2 things to effectively onboard someone quickly, like, to get them up to speed. Number one, when we talk about recruiting and hiring, that includes onboarding. And if you have a way that you want to hire someone, and you are not, and that’s not all aligned with your onboarding and I’ll explain what I mean by that. That’s where a lot of things miss the mark. So I say that because a lot of times people are like, I want to self starter, there’s nothing wrong with that. By the way, I want to self starter. I want someone who can hit the ground running.
Krissy Manzano: And a lot of times what they mean by that though, is I want someone who doesn’t need onboarding. But I’ll have onboarding there. It’s like those, those things aren’t aligned, right? Like this, this idea, like, no one really wants to take the time to train people, which ultimately is why so many individuals fail, right? They want, that’s why you focus on experience over skills and behaviors, because you’re hoping that experience will make someone do well.
Krissy Manzano: And so I think if you care about onboarding, then you need that to be aligned for what you’re assessing through the interview process. So you can make sure that it’s set up to actually help those people. Like, actually take advantage of those skills, right? That you were assessing for to get them up to speed. Right? Is the first piece and kind of high level. And then the 2nd piece is you’ve got to have like, clear outcomes that you want to achieve. So it’s 1 thing to have a schedule that’s organized, which is great. And you need that. But if it’s just like, okay, they shadow here, they shadow there. It’s like, what do you by the end of month one, what do you want them to have achieved?
Krissy Manzano: Right? So that’s how you can really tell, like, within the first 90 days, you should be able to understand what someone is capable of, like, in action, right? Separate from the interview. So, hey, in month 2, it might make sense for them to start showing that they can build pipeline and be on discovery calls. And so, give them a pipeline target. And these are things that you don’t have to do individually. Like, you can create it 1 time, but I think, you know, what are the skills and behaviors that are gonna make someone successful in this role? And then those are the things you really want to elevate during onboarding, right?
Krissy Manzano: So we need people that are really good at active listening and asking discovery questions. Well, they need to, you know, have that chance to do that within the first 30 days over and over again, from shadowing to, you know, driving some of the conversations with potential prospects. Or, you know, with their clients, whatever role you’re in, you know, we’re talking about sales in this example, but it’s kind of my two cents on the matter. Emily, what do you think?
Emily Bell: I mean I would say process is so important. It doesn’t have to be Incredibly intricate. It doesn’t have to be with like a Fortune 500 company, but having some sort of process for new hires to follow is very important because I think it allows you as the company to measure whether or not this person is actually going to be able to be successful in the role much quicker than.
Emily Bell: Maybe the first quarter after they are ramped, and maybe they don’t hit quota. You’re able to really standardize that approach and understand. We actually saw some red flags, in, in the onboarding process compared to what our expectation was the 2nd piece is for individuals. Having some sort of onboarding process that you can follow helps you ramp very quickly and ultimately be better prepared to hit your number, which if you’re in that role, that that’s really the most important thing is what what can you do to expedite your ability to start closing revenue?
Emily Bell: And onboarding is really critical to that. And having a process is the only way to standardize that and standardize the experience across everyone that’s entering into the organization. So, I would say, even if it’s simple, even if it’s just 30 days, having some form of process that everybody knows about, and that is also something that continues to evolve is really important to have, especially in early growth,
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I think, I think that’s spot on. I think one thing came to me and I’m a much more tactically minded individual, hearing you two talk that.
Krissy Manzano: Yes, you are.
Matt Lewers: hear about the strategy. Yeah. I think one thing that I, one thing that always resonated well for the three of us when we worked at two of our three previous stints in ICA and leadership roles, there, and it really, even like the larger the company, sometimes the better here, but I think when you introduce individual contributors specifically to the leaders of other departments and orgs, I think that goes a long way in helping them, both parties establish trust in each other, the right, and the, and what those roles and responsibilities are.
Matt Lewers: John Gleeson, name shout out, did a great job of this with, with CSMs while we were all at Motive. And he made, he carved out time to meet everybody one on one and he, he had rules of engagement clearly outlined so that everybody knew from day one, this is my role versus my responsibility versus my counterpart in another department.
Matt Lewers: And when you scale that out across, you know, marketing, product, sales engineering, if it exists, BDR, SDR leadership, CS. You know, you can empower somebody within week one to feel confident that, hey, if I have questions for another department, I’ve already been in contact in a, in a quick one on one or introduction with leaders of those other departments.
Matt Lewers: And the sooner somebody is comfortable, with, with being able to do that, I think the sooner they’re going to settle into the seat and feel confident when it’s time to hit the ground running. So that’s, you know, if I’m gonna give out my tactical tips and tricks, that’s 1, I would, I would recommend anybody, regardless of the size of the organization. But that’s something that has gone a long way in the past.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. I think those are all great tips and can be helpful, you know, onboard onboarding matters. And I think there’s, there’s no way to get around it, but. It’s something that makes a difference and, you know, it also will engage your employee, right? Like, to, to be in it for if that this is where a lot of employees start to also make their exit to some extent, like, Oh, what I’m seeing, I don’t like, cause like no one’s talking to me or like helping me.
Krissy Manzano: So I think in this new world, I used to not be that way, but now with so many opportunities, and it’s still really competitive, it’s important from an experience standpoint, obviously different company sizes are, are going to provide different experiences and you should make sure that, you know, organization, an organization is aligned with like what a candidate can actually do and what their expectations are for that onboarding experience. But all that to say, I think that these are great tips.
Matt Lewers: Krissy, don’t you worry about this outro. I, what I’d like to say to our listeners, those of you out there, if you have questions or need help either reviewing a current onboarding, process or outline or you’re looking for advice. Any of us are more than happy to do it.
Matt Lewers: We’ve all crafted it both for companies we’ve worked at. And then, from a third party consulting type standpoint as well, happy to hop on a call and help anybody that needs it. That’s all the time we have for today. Thanks for listening. We look forward to having your ears next time and shout out to our special guest, Emily.
Matt Lewers: Appreciate you showing up.
Krissy Manzano: Thanks you all. We almost made it to under 10 minutes, but Matt couldn’t help himself. So
Matt Lewers: That was one of the best outros we’ve ever had.
Krissy Manzano: See you later.
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How do you charge for your services?
We have multiple services packages, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our sales recruitment services page for a breakdown of our packages.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!