Onboarding is a new employee orientation process that is designed to formalize and socialize new hires to an organization, or in this case higher education institutions. The onboarding experience that many new employees have can shape employee views and first impressions of their new employer, and shape their early career path to stay or leave their new place of employment (Dai, De Meuse, & Gaeddert, 2011). The examination of early professional onboarding experiences is important in order to gain insight into current new employee practices and the impact it may have on the retention of skilled institutional advancement employees. Through furthering this study the onboarding processes of early institutional advancement professionals this study found that having an onboarding program, of any type, is important to connecting new institutional advancement professionals to the organization, and aids in establishing a reciprocal communication relationship between suprervisor and employee. This study provides insight to the onboarding experience that new advancement professionals found to be of most important during their adjustment period into the profession, and the impact it has on a new advancement professionals career decisions. This portraiture study depicted the type of onboarding experiences that new institutional advancement professionals received when they entered into the profession, and the impact their onboarding experience has had on their career path decisions. It is important to look at where new professionals came from and their experiences upon entering into the field in order to gain insight into current onboarding practices as a means to improve the onboarding process. It is hoped that this examination provided valuable information that will help future leaders improve the onboarding process to help them in the retention of skilled advancement professionals by understanding the needs and expectation of new employees. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]