We present a critical investigation of an organization’s onboarding communication, i.e. the initial phase of an organization’s socialization process for new employees. This process facilitates the newcomer’s acquisition of appropriate role behaviors related to the resolution of role demands, the development of work skills, and integration into the organization’s norms and values. We draw on a theoretical backdrop of corporate communication, strategic HRM and organizational socialization in order to frame onboarding as an organizational socialization practice. We have established a corpus comprising texts, images and videos from the Welcome Onboard website of the global pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Our methodological lens is one of discourse analysis from a critical perspective with a view to how an individual’s identity is constructed discursively. The analysis revealed one overall pattern. We point to various ramifications, both for the individual newcomer and for society as a whole. We end our paper by firmly situating this work in a setting where it may be put to constructive use, namely in the training of managers of tomorrow.