This article will guide you step-by-step on how to create an employee survey about onboarding experience using an AI-powered conversational survey. With Specific, you can build your own employee onboarding survey in seconds—no hassle, no complicated forms.
Steps to create a survey for employees about onboarding experience
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific.
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
That’s it—you really don’t need to read further if instant results are your goal. With AI, you get an employee survey built with expert knowledge, including context-aware follow-up questions that dig deeper and help you gather actionable insights, all with a click. For more advanced customizations, you can also use the AI survey generator from scratch for any survey type.
Why onboarding experience surveys matter
Let’s be crystal clear: missing out on employee feedback about onboarding is a missed opportunity. Here’s what the data tells us:
34% of employees report not experiencing any formal onboarding program at their organization, which means huge gaps in your team’s experience and satisfaction. [1]
Companies that get onboarding right see real results—employees who undergo effective onboarding are 69% more likely to remain with the company for at least three years. [2]
Those employees are also 2.6 times more likely to be satisfied at work, making them more productive and loyal. [1]
If you’re not running regular, well-designed surveys about onboarding experience, you’re missing out on easy wins—higher retention, better morale, and insights that could transform your workplace.
The benefits of employee feedback are real. Insights gathered today become the cultural improvements and bottom-line boosts of tomorrow. If you care about reducing turnover, boosting engagement, or simply treating your new hires right, onboarding experience surveys should be your baseline tool—see importance of employee onboarding surveys and example questions.
What makes a good onboarding experience survey?
Not all surveys are created equal. For an onboarding experience survey to be effective, it needs to be clear, unbiased, and conversational. Vague or leading questions will turn off your employees or skew your responses. When you’re measuring employee experience, you want to set the stage for honesty and engagement—so the tone must be friendly, encouraging, and distinctly non-corporate.
Here's a quick snapshot:
Bad practice | Good practice |
|---|---|
Confusing or technical jargon | Simple, everyday language |
Leading or loaded questions | Unbiased, neutral queries |
Multiple questions in one | Single, focused question per turn |
No ability to clarify answers | Follow-ups for context and depth |
The best measure of survey quality? Both the quantity and quality of responses should be high. Great surveys invite a high response rate and deeper insights. If people drop off or give short, unhelpful answers, it’s a sign you need to adjust tone, format, or content.
Types of questions for an employee survey about onboarding experience
Let’s look at question formats that work for employee onboarding surveys—including examples you can use right now.
Open-ended questions give your employees space to explain their experience in their own words. These are great for uncovering surprises, detailed feedback, or identifying blind spots you didn’t know existed. Use them early to warm people up or after a rating question for “the why.” Examples:
What is the most memorable part of your onboarding so far?
Is there anything you wish had been different during your first week?
Single-select multiple-choice questions provide structure, which makes response analysis easier. These are best for benchmarking and spotting trends across responses. Example:
How would you rate the clarity of your job responsibilities after onboarding?
Very clear
Somewhat clear
Unclear
Not explained
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is great for measuring overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend the onboarding experience to others. You can generate an NPS onboarding survey with Specific instantly. Example:
On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our onboarding process to a friend or colleague?
Followup questions to uncover "the why": Use these after ratings or ambiguous answers to dig deeper and clarify what really matters to each employee. For example, if someone rates the process as “unclear”:
What about the onboarding process felt unclear to you?
Can you share a specific moment or step where you felt confused?
If you want more inspiration or need help crafting questions that dig deeper, check out our guide: best questions for employee survey about onboarding experience.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is nothing like the usual static, boring form. Instead, it feels like a real-time chat: the AI asks questions, adapts follow-ups based on replies, and makes the process human. This not only increases completion rates but also draws out richer, more honest feedback. Unlike old-school, manual creation—where you labor over wording and sequencing—AI-driven surveys can generate, adapt, and refine questions instantly.
Manual survey | AI-generated survey |
|---|---|
Static forms, one-size-fits-all | Conversational, adaptive, personalized |
Requires manual setup and editing | Built in seconds using expert AI knowledge |
No smart follow-ups | Real-time clarifying questions and context gathering |
Why use AI for employee surveys? With an AI survey example, you’re no longer guessing what to ask or how to keep the conversation going. The AI maintains a conversational flow, prompts respondents when needed, and adapts to each answer—all with best practices built right in. If you want to know more about customizing or editing surveys using simple chat commands, see our AI survey editor guide. Plus, our AI survey generator delivers the best-in-class user experience, making feedback frictionless for everyone involved.
If you want practical, step-by-step instructions for making your own survey from scratch, don’t miss: how to create and analyze employee surveys.
The power of follow-up questions
One of the most underutilized features in surveys is the follow-up question. With Specific’s automatic AI followup questions, you never have to worry about incomplete or unclear responses. The AI recognizes when more detail is needed and asks in real time. This is far more efficient than chasing employees with emails for clarification, and feels like a natural chat—not a cold survey.
Employee: "I was confused about my benefits."
AI follow-up: "Which part of the benefits information was unclear for you?"
How many followups to ask? In most cases, two or three well-chosen followups are enough to get the context you need—while respecting your respondent’s time. If the AI determines it already has full information, it moves on. With Specific, you can set these limits to make sure the experience is never overwhelming.
This makes it a conversational survey: follow-ups turn your survey from a rigid form into a real, meaningful conversation.
Easy survey analysis, AI-powered insights: Even if you collect lots of open-ended responses, analyzing them is simple. The AI summarizes key themes and enables you to interact with the data (read more: AI survey response analysis and how to analyze survey responses).
This feature redefines survey collection. Generate a survey in Specific, watch smart follow-ups in action, and see how effortless analysis can be.
See this onboarding experience survey example now
Want to understand your team's true experience, encourage honest responses, and uncover what actually works during onboarding? Generate your own survey now and experience the difference Specific’s conversational surveys make—smarter insights, faster setup, and feedback you can actually use.