At Lever, the moment a new hire signs an offer letter is the best part of our day.
We have the same high bar for everyone who joins our 200+ person team, so whether we built a relationship with a candidate for months or we sped them through a whirlwind, week-long process, we’re never less than completely pumped at the prospect of welcoming a new member on board. By the time an offer letter goes out, employees from all corners of the company are eager to know whether we’re about to add one more Leveroo to our ranks.
We all know that finally getting the “yes” from a dream candidate is a huge win. But in my experience at previous companies, hiring managers oftentimes miss the opportunity to reaffirm the new team member’s decision and celebrate with them. Deflating conversations like these are common: 
We want candidates to know that the enthusiasm they felt during the interview process didn’t only exist to get them to join the team and fill a seat. We’re seriously stoked to be working with them and can’t wait for them to start.
That’s why candidates get these in their emails after they decide to join Lever.
We have so. much. fun. creating these GIFs. The hiring manager or recruiter will let out a “whoo!” from their desk and yell out “GIF Time!” (or announce it in Slack).
The team gathers and there’s a flurry of “I’m so excited about Sean!”s and “Congrats Paolo!”s and “When is she starting???” as well as, “What’s the choreography?” See, the GIFs used to be pretty straightforward. But in the spirit of making each one unique, they’ve become quite elaborate and a far more creative endeavor…
An evolution of Lever welcome GIFS
2014
Early 2015
Hundreds of GIFs later…
But the GIF madness doesn’t end there. The hiring manager cc’s the entire team on an email thread containing the “welcome gift,” where we all add our personal welcomes – which of course, include more GIFs.
The best recruiters we know love their jobs because it allows them to create and enjoy life-changing moments for others. The best hiring managers we know take their jobs as seriously as they do because they truly love developing others and watching them succeed. This is part of what makes working for a recruiting tech company so fun, and not only do we help our customers improve recruiting, we get to do the same for growing our own team.
This was a well-kept secret at Lever for a year and a half – we loved the idea of surprising our new hires with this kind of explosive welcome. At the same time, we’re just as excited to finally debut these GIFs to the world, to encourage all recruiters and hiring managers to make that pivotal moment of offer acceptance so much more special. We can’t wait to see other companies adapt and take their own spin on the welcome GIFs. Share with us your GIFS on Twitter @Lever. (This is our go-to GIF maker, good luck!)
Oh, and sometimes we send GIFs to customers too…
And they respond!
This story originally appeared on Linkedin’s Talent Blog, and has been refreshed for 2019.