How to announce a new hire
Somebody has joined and the post celebrating it is about them, written without them, and permanent. That combination appears nowhere else on this list and it should make the writing more careful rather than warmer.
The subject is a person who did not choose the words
Everything else here describes a company decision. This describes a human being, in public, on a permanent record, in language they did not approve, on their first week when they are least able to object. The failure mode is therefore not blandness, it is a kind of cheerful inaccuracy: a summary of somebody's career written by whoever had ten minutes, in which the wrong thing is emphasised and the person spends a year being introduced by it. The fix is procedural before it is editorial. Ask them what they would like foregrounded, show them the draft, and be willing to publish nothing if they would rather. A welcome that embarrasses its subject has failed at the only job it had.
The rule for this one
Name one specific thing the new person has done, and one thing they are about to change. Show them the draft before it goes out.
What the category publishes, and what the rule produces.
The first draft is a composite written to match the register the ranking pages for this query actually publish. It quotes no company and no real post. The second obeys the rule above and nothing else, so anything that changes between them is the rule doing it.
The version everyone posts
We are thrilled to welcome Priya to the team as our new Head of Design! Priya brings a wealth of experience and we are so excited to have her on board. Please join us in giving her a warm welcome as she begins this exciting new chapter.
The version that obeys the rule
Priya has joined us to run design. She spent four years making a booking flow that worked on a two year old Android phone, which is the problem we have been losing to. The first thing she is changing is the onboarding, and she has already told us which part of it she thinks is indefensible.
It is entirely composed of adjectives about a stranger. "A wealth of experience" tells a reader nothing about what she can do, and it tells her new colleagues nothing about why she is here.
4 of 10 measured dimensions moved.
Both drafts were read by the engine behind our free brand voice generator. It is arithmetic over the text rather than a judgement, which is the reason it is used here: every figure below can be checked by counting the draft printed above it.
| Dimension | Before | After | Moved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sentences | 3 | 3 | No |
| Words | 47 | 56 | Yes |
| Average sentence, in words | 15.7 | 18.7 | Yes |
| Longest sentence, in words | 16 | 26 | Yes |
| Contractions per 100 words | 0 | 0 | No |
| Speaks to the reader | No | No | No |
| First person (we, our, us) | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Second person (you, your) | 0 | 0 | No |
| Vocabulary richness, out of 100 | 77 | 77 | No |
| Contains a stock phrase | No | No | No |
Read across all fifteen moments the pattern is sharper than any single page: the hub has the corpus numbers.
What earns the post
- A concrete piece of their previous work, described in a way an outsider can picture.
- The first problem they are picking up, which tells the team what to bring them.
- Something they have already said, quoted, so the post contains their voice and not only yours.
When not to post it at all
Skip it if they would rather you did not, and ask rather than assume. People leaving a job they have not yet resigned from, or leaving a difficult one, have reasons for wanting a quiet arrival.