Understanding exit interviews
An exit interview is a discussion between your organization and a departing employee, usually held during their final days of work. Asking key questions in exit interviews gives you a chance to understand certain aspects of your organization from an employee’s perspective, including:
- Reasons for leaving
- Workload
- Pay and compensation
- Job satisfaction
- Management
- Team or colleagues
- Work environment and culture
- Organization as a whole
“Take this opportunity to listen to your exiting employee. Often they are voicing views other employees share but haven’t communicated.”
—Joe Scotto, HR leader
Why exit interview questions are important
Asking the right questions can help you gain valuable insight from each exit interview. When discussing an employee’s departure, phrase questions with neutral and inclusive language to encourage honest answers.
If an interviewee’s responses are short or vague, consider asking them to expand with additional clarification or examples. The purpose is to gather feedback and insights from employees. Even if their perceptions do not align with those of the employer, it’s important to collect and evaluate this information.
In addition to closing the employee relationship in a pleasant and organized manner, the primary purpose of an exit interview is to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that contributed to an employee’s decision to resign.
This insight can help you identify opportunities in your business processes and make meaningful changes to your long-term strategy. Some key benefits of exit interviews include:
- Work-life balance: Evaluate how employees feel about work-life balance options, such as remote work options and schedule flexibility.
- Company culture: Learn about communication or behavioral factors contributing to a toxic or healthy company culture.
- Management: Reveal how management communicates with and supports employees.
- Employee support: Analyze onboarding and training procedures that support employee development.
- Performance: Improve factors related to job satisfaction, leading to higher employee motivation and performance.
- Retention and turnover: Determine if employee departures are due to oversights in your business or unrelated factors, identifying opportunities to improve retention, reduce turnover rates and hiring and training costs.
15 exit interview questions
Consider asking the following exit interview sample questions to strengthen your offboarding process:
1. What prompted you to search for another opportunity?
Begin the exit interview by asking the employee why they’re leaving. Answers to this question can vary widely. It’s important to determine if their departure is directly related to their experience at your organization. Their answers can help guide the discussion and spark ideas for follow-up questions.
This question can also help determine which opportunities, benefits or perks your company could offer to attract and retain top talent. For example, if you notice departing employees frequently report insufficient opportunities for advancement, it might indicate managers aren’t adequately addressing employees’ development needs.
2. Do you feel supported in your success?
Companies have a responsibility to ensure that each team member has the tools and feedback required to excel in their role, including training, one-on-one meetings, performance reviews and development opportunities.
This exit interview question can reveal whether employees feel underserved in these areas, allowing you to address the concerns with your leadership team. Consider following up by asking what could have been done to increase their perception of being supported.
3. What were the best and worst aspects of your job?
This exit interview question can help identify what future employees may enjoy or dislike about the role, which may help you set expectations for the position going forward. In contrast, learning what employees liked best about working for your business can reveal which job satisfaction strategies are most effective. These insights are important to highlight in future job descriptions and interviews.
4. How has your job changed since you were hired?
Job roles often change in response to the fluctuating needs of the department or company. Sometimes, these changes demand different skills or responsibilities than the position initially required, potentially making current employees less satisfied with their work or compensation.
Hearing how the role changed provides details to include in job descriptions to ensure your next hire is well-suited for the role’s responsibilities. Based on the response to this question, you might consider adjusting the position’s compensation to meet any new expectations. Consider following up by asking if they felt they were prepared for those changes.
5. What did the company do to make you feel valued and recognized?
Employee recognition can influence job satisfaction. Recognizing your employees’ contributions and value can boost motivation, fuel productivity and improve retention rates. However, feeling unrecognized can prompt employees to look for new positions elsewhere.
This question can open up discussions about a time when the employee did or didn’t feel valued, providing insight into which employee recognition methods are effective or missing from your business.
Unlike yes-or-no exit interview questions, asking this question may prompt the employee to elaborate on their response and give you better insight.
6. What suggestions do you have for the company? How could we improve?
This is one of the best exit interview questions to ask a departing employee. Whether suggestions about management style or compensation and benefits, all types of feedback and comments are important.
Although it may not be realistic to make changes based on every suggestion, knowing what employees find important can help determine how to support job satisfaction and workplace morale, which can cultivate employee loyalty and retention.
7. What factors could have influenced your decision to leave or stay with the company?
Direct exit interview questions can help you narrow down why employees choose to leave. If any factors encouraged them to pursue other opportunities, they might be worth examining further and asking for specific examples.
For example, if an employee says they may have stayed if the company offered more flexibility, you might explore a remote work policy, flexible start and finish times, unlimited vacation or other flexible work options.
8. Would you recommend this company to a friend? Why or why not?
Even though they left your company, former employees can be excellent job candidate referral sources. However, there may be some who wouldn’t recommend your company to their peers. In this case, it can be helpful to understand the employee’s reasons and correct any significant workplace issues.
9. Did you share any of the concerns we discussed today with the company before deciding to leave?
Asking this exit interview question can reveal whether employees feel safe and comfortable voicing their concerns and opinions in the workplace. If they didn’t report their concerns, it could mean your company lacks a culture where employees can feel confident expressing their concerns.
If they reported their concerns, but they were unresolved, it may mean your business doesn’t support and respond to employee feedback the way it should. In this case, you can implement employee satisfaction surveys or an employee suggestion box to measure how your current employees feel and identify issues that can help prevent future turnover.
10. Do you have any comments or issues you’d like to address?
Even if your exit interview questions were thorough, employees may not have had a chance to fully discuss their experience. This open-ended question is best asked at the end of the conversation to invite employees to comment on topics or issues that weren’t addressed. It may produce helpful feedback in unexpected areas.
There may be points that require follow-up on your end. Commit to next steps if appropriate and be sure to follow up as promised.
Other exit interview questions to consider
- How would you rate communication with your colleagues and managers?
- Did you consider your workload to be reasonable and in line with the job description?
- Did you feel there was room for growth within the company?
- Did you enjoy the work and feel challenged in your role?
- Could you provide examples of specific situations that could have been improved?
By asking the right open-ended questions and listening without defensiveness, you can turn every departure into actionable insight that may strengthen culture, fix hidden problems and potentially reduce future turnover. Make the conversation safe, thank them for their candor and act on what you learn.
