If you want genuine onboarding insights, your **employee survey tools** need to go beyond basic forms. Effective onboarding feedback hinges on asking the right questions at the right moment—like day 7 and day 30—and choosing questions that truly spark open, nuanced responses.
Timing matters, but so does question quality. Too many traditional surveys gloss over details, while conversational surveys dive into what really matters for new employees and HR teams alike.
Essential questions for your first-week onboarding survey
The first week is about first impressions—day 7 is a critical milestone when experiences are still fresh but initial nerves are settling. At this stage, 29% of new hires have already decided if the job is a fit, and 70% will make their decision by the end of their first month. [1] Thoughtful, conversational questions catch these reflections while they’re most honest.
What surprised you most in week one?
Uncovers unexpected challenges or positives that might go unreported—great for understanding gaps in communication or orientation.How clear were your first assignments and expectations?
Reveals whether your communication is hitting home, and helps spot confusion before it affects performance.Did anyone or anything help you feel welcomed?
Finds out what’s working in your onboarding culture—and what could be emulated.What was the most confusing part of starting here?
Exposes common obstacles or unclear processes that could hurt engagement (81% of new hires report feeling overwhelmed with onboarding information [2]).Are you missing any resources or access you need to get started?
A quick win for both new employees and IT or HR, removing barriers before they become headaches.
Traditional forms can miss the subtlety behind these answers. That’s where AI follow-ups shine—they automatically probe deeper (“What about that surprised you?” or “Can you share more on the confusing part?”) to capture real stories and actionable context. You can see how this works in our automatic AI follow-up questions feature, which adapts to every response in real time.
Month-one questions that reveal deeper insights
By day 30, the feedback game changes. The initial learning curve flattens, and now you need to uncover how well your new hires are integrating, what’s confusing them longer-term, and whether they have the support to grow. Month-one questions should explore:
How would you describe your understanding of your role now?
Directly addresses role clarity—incredibly important since only 12% of employees feel their company excels at onboarding. [2]Are the tools and processes supporting your work, or causing friction?
Surfaces ongoing challenges, helping you prioritize future fixes and improvements.Who do you turn to with questions—and is it clear who owns what?
Pinpoints gaps in team integration and mentorship, strengthening your onboarding map.Has anything made you question if this role is the right fit?
Direct pathway to retention and engagement blockers (remember, great onboarding can boost retention by 82% [1]).What’s one thing we could have done better in your first month?
Highlights both small tweaks and larger program changes needed to support future hires.
These questions shouldn’t be asked in isolation—they build on day 7 responses for a progressive experience. With Specific, you can automatically schedule these follow-up surveys so you're always collecting feedback at the right milestones. If someone flags “unclear processes” at day 7, AI can follow up at day 30 with, “Which process is still unclear, and what would make it easier?” That’s the power of AI-driven, conversational survey follow-ups—proactively surfacing what matters, exactly when it matters.
Setting up automated onboarding feedback with AI
The reality: manually coordinating onboarding feedback is a nightmare. Drafting emails, copying forms, managing calendars… it’s no wonder 55% of companies don’t even measure onboarding effectiveness [3]. Modern employee survey tools automate this entire workflow. With tools like AI survey builders, you spin up thoughtful, logic-driven onboarding surveys in seconds, not days.
Try these prompts for generating onboarding surveys that match your needs:
Create a 5-question onboarding survey for all new employees, focusing on their expectations, first impressions, and support received in the first week.
Generate onboarding survey questions tailored for technical roles. Emphasize tool access, documentation clarity, and help channels.
Write an onboarding survey for remote hires, focusing on communication tools, culture integration, and remote support experience.
Because these surveys run in a conversational format—whether via landing page or in-product chat—you get much higher response rates and far richer answers compared to static forms. That’s part of what drives Specific’s approach to richer, natural feedback. And with smart AI analysis, you don’t just get answers—you see the patterns and trends that matter across all your new-hire cohorts, turning raw feedback into knowledge.
Transform onboarding responses into actionable improvements
Collecting feedback is only half the battle; it’s what you do with it that counts. That’s where AI analysis comes in. You instantly surface recurring themes (“Many new hires struggle with our documentation”), compare feedback across teams, or see which onboarding tweaks made a difference over time. You can try out Specific’s AI survey response analysis to see how effortless this can be.
Summarize the top three recurring issues mentioned by new hires in their day 30 onboarding feedback and propose two actionable improvements for each.
Even better, you can literally chat with AI about response patterns—like “What makes some new hires feel welcome while others feel isolated?”—and pull recommendations instantly. Tracking the same questions over time builds a powerful improvement loop: you don’t just patch problems, you make onboarding a superpower for engagement and retention.
Continuous improvement starts with consistently listening—and acting—on meaningful new-employee feedback.
Build your onboarding feedback system today
Create your own onboarding survey with AI—automate scheduling and follow-ups, and start unlocking richer employee insights. Start building your onboarding feedback system now!