how to perform exit interview

How To Perform An Exit Interview – DO’s and DON’Ts

In this article we’re going to be talking about how to get the most out of an exit interview and what an exit interview actually is in the first place. So to kick things off, what is an exit interview?

What is an exit interview?

So essentially when you resign from a role, HR will usually reach out to you to perform an exit interview. And this will usually be to gather feedback about why you’ve left the company and certain areas that the company could improve. So in future they can retain great talent like yourself in the company. So it’ll usually be a questionnaire in the form of a survey that you fill out on your computer. It’s usually not done in person or not typically done in person, although HR might do a separate templated survey email with you, but also someone in your team, for example, your line manager, they might want to reach out to you directly to have a in-person or via Zoom exit interview to really get an understanding of the reasons why you’re left and again, how they can improve retention in the future.

One of the good things to call out is that typically the beneficiary of an exit interview won’t necessarily be you. It’ll typically be the HR department and hopefully if they actually implement some of your feedback, the beneficiaries will also be your colleagues that are going to be remaining in the company that you’re leaving. That said, it can be a great opportunity for you to reflect on your time and role and also where this company could improve so that you can bank those learnings and bank those insights and also take them to the company that you’re moving to ensure that as you move from company to company, you are learning things and gathering insights that can help improve the workplace culture and the dynamic in the companies you work in because you’re learning from all the mistakes of all the previous companies that you’ve worked for.

Tip #1: Just be honest in your exit interview

So the first tip when it comes to exit interviews is just to be honest. So like I said, the beneficiaries will typically be many of your colleagues that will be remaining in the company that you’re leaving. So for their benefit, it can be great opportunity for you to be honest about all the reasons why you’re leaving and how the company can improve its way of working or its workplace culture so that your colleagues, and hopefully you’ve still got some friends that are remaining in the company, they’ll benefit from that feedback and they’ll help retain them in their role and also potentially help them to treat their employees better.

Tip #2: Be constructive in your feedback

Tip number two is to be constructive. Now, it’s incredibly tempting in an exit interview to be very negative and just to focus on all the bad things that the company’s done that is driving you out the exit door and a much better opportunity.

But you really want to be careful about not leaving a bad taste in people’s mouth when you leave the company. You don’t just want to use the exit interview as an opportunity to get your baseball bat out and start absolutely smashing the company to bits because if you do that, it’s going to hurt your credibility and it’s not going to make them want to actually implement the pieces of feedback that you leave in your exit interview, which makes it a waste of time for you and for the HR department. And it means that all of your colleagues that will be remaining in the company won’t get the benefit of that great feedback and all those insights.

So like I said, it’s a great opportunity to be honest and really leave some constructive feedback, but you do want it to be constructive and don’t fall for the temptation just to be super, super negative. You want to really provide tangible pieces of feedback that the company can action and make sure that they’re specific so that they can action them really easily and really simply into their ways of working.

Tip #3: Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in person

Tip number three is just not to say anything that you wouldn’t say in person. While you might be completing this survey online, it’s not going to be anonymous. Your name will be attached to it, which means that when you leave the company is a good chance that this exit interview content could be circulated with a variety of stakeholders. That could be quite senior, could be your previous manager and the HR department.

So you want to make sure your feedback isn’t going to blow back in a negative way onto people that you work with, but also reflect badly on your line manager, especially if there’s someone that you really like and that you really respect. Let’s be honest, when we choose to leave a company, there’s usually a myriad of reasons why we’re leaving.

Maybe there might be something negative about the company that we used to work for, but there also might be many positive traits about the company we’re moving to. So it’s usually a complex story about why we’re leaving a particular company. So again, you don’t want to burn bridges in your previous industry or your previous role because you never know when you might meet those people again in the future, and you don’t want to leave a bad reputation about yourself lingering in the company that you’re leaving.

Tip #4: Don’t burn bridges

So again, it’s super tempting if you’re leaving for some negative reasons in particular to absolutely trash the company, but you really don’t want to burn bridges with anyone in the company. You’re leaving. You want to stay classy and you want to stay professional.

I can’t stress how important it is when you’re leaving a company not to trash talk, not to bash the company, but to leave on good terms because you never know when you might meet these people again in the future and you just want to leave a good reputation about yourself and any company that you enter or leave.

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