New Hire Welcome Quiz: 21 Questions for Onboarding Week
The first week at a new job is mostly a listening exercise — meetings full of names, acronyms, and in-jokes with no entry point. A welcome quiz flips that for about ten minutes: everyone plays the same game on equal footing, and the new hire gets to be a person with opinions instead of "the new person on mute".
This pack is deliberately company-agnostic. It quizzes the culture of work itself — the jargon every office pretends is self-explanatory (EOD, async, "loop you in"), workplace traditions from Sweden's fika to Japan's inemuri, and the famous ideas people quote in meetings without knowing the source. A new hire can win this quiz on day two, which is exactly the point. The jargon questions double as a genuinely useful glossary — some teams discover mid-game that they don't agree on what EOD means.
It runs as a live team quiz: share a link, everyone answers on their own device, and a live leaderboard keeps score. No accounts — which matters in week one, when the new hire's logins are still half-provisioned.
How to run this with your team
- Add a few questions about your team before hosting. The pack loads fully editable. Three or four local questions — "which meeting has a snack tradition?", "what's the dog's name in every standup?" — turn a good icebreaker into a genuine welcome. Keep the rest for balance, so the newcomer can still score.
- Keep it to ten questions. The defaults draw a shuffled 10 of 21 at 20 seconds each — about ten minutes, an easy fit in an onboarding-week team call. The undrawn questions keep the pack fresh for your next new hire.
- Use Pause & Discuss to hand the team a story. When a reveal lands — the Zappos pay-to-quit question always does — pause on it and let the team react. Watch the vote split on the jargon questions too: they're a low-stakes excuse to align on what your team actually means by them.
- Let the leaderboard introduce people. Read out the top three at the end and make the winner say how they knew the weird one. In a quiz with no company lore, don't be surprised when that's the new hire.
The questions (21)
1.What does OOO mean on a colleague's calendar?
- A.Out of office
- B.Out of order
- C.On other objectives
- D.Officially offline
Show answer
Out of office
2.When someone says they'll get it to you by EOD, what do they mean?
- A.End of week
- B.End of day
- C.Every other day
- D.Estimate on delivery
Show answer
End of day
3.What does it mean to loop someone in?
- A.Give them feedback
- B.Assign them a task
- C.Add them to a conversation
- D.Book a recurring meeting with them
Show answer
Add them to a conversation
4."Water cooler chat" is office shorthand for what?
- A.Casual, off-topic conversation
- B.A scheduled hydration break
- C.Gossip about management
- D.The company newsletter
Show answer
Casual, off-topic conversation
5.In many teams, what is a stand-up?
- A.An all-hands presentation
- B.A short daily sync meeting
- C.A performance review
- D.An improv exercise
Show answer
A short daily sync meeting
6.Async communication means what?
- A.Camera-off meetings
- B.Anonymous feedback
- C.Instant replies expected
- D.Replying on your own schedule
Show answer
Replying on your own schedule
7.Amazon's famous two-pizza rule says what?
- A.Meetings should end before lunch
- B.A team should be small enough to feed with two pizzas
- C.Fridays deserve free pizza
- D.Never discuss more than two topics per meeting
Show answer
A team should be small enough to feed with two pizzas
8.The handshake reportedly began as a way to show what?
- A.Respect for elders
- B.That you weren't holding a weapon
- C.Equal social rank
- D.That a deal was final
Show answer
That you weren't holding a weapon
9.The phrase nine to five became world-famous through a 1980 film starring which singer?
- A.Madonna
- B.Cher
- C.Dolly Parton
- D.Diana Ross
Show answer
Dolly Parton
10.According to the most-cited modern study, how long does it take on average to form a new habit?
- A.21 days
- B.7 days
- C.100 days
- D.About 66 days
Show answer
About 66 days
11.What is the most common opening question in job interviews?
- A."Where do you see yourself in five years?"
- B."Tell me about yourself"
- C."What's your biggest weakness?"
- D."Why do you want this job?"
Show answer
"Tell me about yourself"
12.Psychologists say a first impression forms in about how long?
- A.Seven seconds
- B.Thirty seconds
- C.Two minutes
- D.Ten minutes
Show answer
Seven seconds
13.What is fika, a workplace tradition Sweden takes seriously enough to schedule?
- A.A silent focus hour
- B.A daily coffee-and-pastry break with colleagues
- C.A Friday afternoon sauna
- D.A standing-desk stretch session
Show answer
A daily coffee-and-pastry break with colleagues
14.In Japan, inemuri — napping at work — is traditionally read as a sign of what?
- A.Laziness
- B.Poor health
- C.Working hard
- D.Seniority
Show answer
Working hard
15.The average person spends roughly what share of their waking life at work?
- A.A tenth
- B.A quarter
- C.A third
- D.Half
Show answer
A third
16.The word brainstorming was coined in which industry?
- A.Advertising
- B.Psychology
- C.The military
- D.Publishing
Show answer
Advertising
17.Parkinson's Law says what?
- A.Meetings always start five minutes late
- B.Work expands to fill the time available
- C.Email begets email
- D.The last 10% takes 90% of the time
Show answer
Work expands to fill the time available
18.The Pomodoro productivity technique is named after what?
- A.Its inventor's surname
- B.An Italian word meaning focus
- C.A tomato-shaped kitchen timer
- D.A Roman emperor
Show answer
A tomato-shaped kitchen timer
19.Which company became famous for offering new hires money to quit during onboarding?
- A.Netflix
- B.Google
- C.Airbnb
- D.Zappos
Show answer
Zappos
20.Malcolm Gladwell popularised the claim that 10,000 hours of practice makes you what?
- A.A millionaire
- B.An expert
- C.A manager
- D.Exhausted
Show answer
An expert
21.Dunbar's number suggests humans can maintain roughly how many stable relationships?
- A.50
- B.150
- C.500
- D.5,000
Show answer
150
FAQ
Is this tied to a specific company?
No — it's company-agnostic on purpose, so it works on day one anywhere. The best version adds three or four questions about your own team before hosting; every question is editable.
When during onboarding week should we play it?
Day two or three works best — after introductions, before routine sets in. It gives a new hire a low-stakes way to join the team's banter instead of watching it.
Does the new hire need an account to play?
No — everyone joins with a link in the browser. That matters in week one, when a new hire's accounts and logins are still being provisioned.