How I almost made a huge mistake in an exit interview

At every opportunity to burn a bridge, don&#x27;t do it. That bridge might be rickety and you&#x27;d never cross again but it is a possible path in the future or maybe a recommendation that brings in some other bridge to cross.<p>Exit interviews just gracefully decline or say the good things that happened at work, I am sure over time there was some gained experience.<p>If you truly don&#x27;t like the place and they did things that will lead them to their ultimate ends, just let them. You are leaving, you are free, it isn&#x27;t your problem, you tried to help when you were there. Nothing amazing will happen with words if you couldn&#x27;t change it with actions in possibly years of work.

The most important thing you can learn about working in a big company is that HR exists to work for management, not you.<p>So take the exit interview (and all other HR interactions) with that in mind.

One place I left I &quot;named names&quot; during an exit interview. I know it didn&#x27;t help right then, but I also know I wasn&#x27;t the first, and I told colleagues that I named names. After a couple more people left, they also named the same names. Many months later, there was a bit of a cleanup, and the named names were dealt with. I almost wanted to go back because by all accounts it was a much healthier environment after the named were let go.

<i>Well, that could’ve been awkward. If I had written what I really wanted to say in the exit interview, our final conversation could have gone much differently.</i><p>So? Leaving a company is always uncomfortable. And you&#x27;re <i>leaving</i>. Who cares if your parting conversation with your ineffectual boss is a slightly worse experience?<p><i>If I had been harsh in my exit interview, what could have happened? What might my old boss say if he was called to verify my previous employment?</i><p>This seems like much anxiety over theoretical possibilities.<p>It seems to me that people&#x27;s attitudes toward hiring would utterly doom anyone who has ever had an incompetent, a-hole boss. Personally, I&#x27;ve found that employers who actually want me will hire me on the spot. Ones who want to dink around with references and confirming employment history have proved to be wishy-washy and overly cautious in everything. If someone wants to chat with your last employer, expect them to be reluctant to approve that new machine you&#x27;ve been asking for all year.

Is there any point in doing an exit interview? It feels a lot like Miranda rights - &quot;anything you say can and will be used against you&quot;. Note: not for you.<p>If you work somewhere good, then you will presumably have tried to change things before leaving. If you work somewhere with issues, then the exit interview won&#x27;t change anything.

I disagree quite a bit with the advice left at the bottom. It seems many people equate &quot;being honest&quot; with &quot;being a jerk&quot;.<p>You can still provide very honest and valuable feedback when you exit a company, without being a jerk. If the move is really about you, and nothing that the company can or should change, then that&#x27;s fine.<p>But if there are things that the company did to cause you to leave, or if a once great company changed directions and started diverting from what you considered an awesome place to work, then you are only hurting those you leave behind when you &quot;focus on yourself&quot; and not &quot;focus on others or the company&quot;.<p>If you&#x27;re exit interview is with HR, then it may very well not do any good. But if you&#x27;re tactful and constructive with your feedback -- even if it is about things the company could change -- then it <i>shouldn&#x27;t</i> hurt you. And if the interview is with someone above you -- or if it falls in their hands -- then it could very well benefit the company and the people you leave behind.<p>If I were your ex-coworker, I would be disappointed that you didn&#x27;t take the opportunity to help improve the culture I&#x27;m still a part of. If I were your manager, I would want you to be honest so that I can improve the culture to attract better talent going forward.<p>If the company&#x2F;people you work with don&#x27;t handle constructive feedback very well, then that&#x27;s their problem and not yours.<p>My advice: Be honest, but professional and constructive about it.

I think if you treat this situation like the lords and serfs, then yes, you should probably not be honest with yourself. You should definitely not make any trouble, ruffle any feathers, avoid &#x27;staying foolish&#x27;..<p>But if you think of it in the reality of your life and you are your own master, then you owe it to yourself to be honest and say what&#x27;s on your mind. This isn&#x27;t illegal (yet) and yah, you might run into someone who knows someone in the lords network.. But, is that the way to live?<p>I&#x27;m not saying to be rude or insensitive or a jerk on the way out. But once you realize a place isn&#x27;t for you, then why does it matter what they say or think. Does Mark Hurd care what anyone connected to HP thinks? (Granted, he&#x27;s an extreme case and if only we didn&#x27;t have to play by the rules too..)<p>If you&#x27;re leaving a place where there were people that were jerks, then sure, it&#x27;s up to you to tone it down or turn it up. I&#x27;ve seen a lot of both kinds of exits and the people I know that turned it up were never ostracized and denied good jobs later. In fact, most found great jobs that could stay with for a long time.

I&#x27;m all about not burning bridges. I&#x27;m also all about not being afraid of confrontation.<p>It sounds like this article&#x27;s main reason to avoid being HONEST is to avoid the confrontation that be a product of being honest. Yay passive aggressiveness!<p>ZOMG SOMEONE MIGHT READ MY FILE AND BE UPSET BECAUSE I CALLED THEM OUT.<p>In reality, if you haven&#x27;t been honest and confronted the negatives in your job by the time you leave, this is actually pretty good advice.<p>Life is too short to hate where you work, what you do, or who you work with. Not happy? Put plans in motion to change that. Don&#x27;t hide from reality. Embrace the confrontation, you&#x27;ll be happier and in a better place because of it.

This is so counter to how I&#x27;ve approached exit interviews. I try to give as much concerned criticism as possible. And commendation on the things done well, if course.<p>Why? To make the place better for the friends I&#x27;m leaving. And presumably you like some of the management, so also to help them run a better company.<p>I can&#x27;t quite understand the defensively posturing, so I&#x27;ll assume it&#x27;s that I&#x27;ve been lucky enough to work in the sort of environments where I feel comfortable saying the things above :)

I always conduct exit interviews in person (how on earth would it be possible to conduct an exit interview <i>anonymously</i>!?). Often I have to press and poke and ask the same question 10 different ways before I actually get to the real meat of what the person wants to tell me. People naturally want to leave a good impression, they don&#x27;t want to rock the boat, even if they&#x27;ve had a terrible experience. I don&#x27;t want to hear your canned responses about getting a better opportunity elsewhere. I want to know why <i>this</i> company isn&#x27;t that kickass opportunity. I what to know where and when we went wrong so that I can <i>improve</i>.<p>The article mentions<p><i>&quot;If I had written what I really wanted to say in the exit interview, our final conversation could have gone much differently&quot;</i><p>Yeah! With the sanitized responses, this conversation is just wasting my time. With the <i>real</i> responses, I can actually respond to your feedback and make the job better for the next guy.

The easiest way to avoid making mistakes in an exit interview is not to participate in one. You&#x27;re not obligated to do an exit interview, and nobody takes it personally if you don&#x27;t.

This really feels familiar for me. I was emailed an &quot;anonymous&quot; survey when leaving a Big Corp, and filled it out honestly and mostly positive.<p>Of course they bring up my answers in the exit interview, and when I told them &quot;I thought that was anonymous.&quot; they told me, &quot;Oh it is, only HR is allowed to see it. We remove the names from the surveys before we send it to [the boss].&quot;<p>Of course turnover is low enough there that the boss could easily match the responses to the employees. So essentially, the &quot;anonymous&quot; aspect is a giant lie. Wish I could go back and amend the anonymous survey to tell the what I think about companies which lie to their employees, even if said employees are on their way out.

What? At my last exit interview, I told them (HR) that the boss was a poor communicator, incompetent technically, and didn&#x27;t know how to manage a project.<p>They asked me if I&#x27;d consider working for another team.<p>I laughed.

This logic should also be applied to when past employees call for references. Never give a statement, refer the person calling to your corporate HR department. Your company most likely has a policy for this, in addition if you say something you are not supposed to legally you could open yourself up to a heap of trouble. INAL but I&#x27;ve sat through enough corporate HR presentations to have this hammered home and hopefully can share this with startups who haven&#x27;t had the benefit of an experienced HR team.

The standard advise is to <i>never</i> do an exit interview!<p><a href="http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/haexit.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.asktheheadhunter.com&#x2F;haexit.htm</a>

BTW - as someone who&#x27;s in the financial industry (i.e. not software development), it&#x27;s shocking to me that companies ask for references from prior employers. Positive feedback is obviously helpful, but there&#x27;s a huge incentive for false negative feedback. It&#x27;s just really unimaginable why that would be seen as a reliable source.

I feel it&#x27;s best to not really say anything of substance. You&#x27;re not there to proffer advice, and it&#x27;s not like they are disposed to listen to (what will be perceived as) the disgruntled ramblings of someone who got fed up and quit. To them, when you quit over problems in the organization, it doesn&#x27;t mean they need to change, it means you &quot;couldn&#x27;t handle it&quot;.<p>Basically, offer them your consulting services if they are actually interested in fixing their problems (spoiler: they&#x27;re not). Everything else, keep it super anodyne and say the functional equivalent of nothing.

Would it really have been a mistake? Someone who&#x27;d lie to you in that way doesn&#x27;t seem like someone you gain a lot from being on good terms with.

Go on LinkedIn and browse through your old bosses&#x27; networks. Everyone knows everyone.<p>Another point: Companies are most willing to listen to feedback from the people they like. If you are a superstar and leave because the work is not challenging then management will take notice. If you whine about the job being boring everyday then management will write you off as a chronic complainer.

How can the exit interview be anonymous? It&#x27;s not like whoever&#x27;s reading it doesn&#x27;t know it&#x27;s you leaving.

Atleast your manager did not show up un-announced in your exit interview with the HR! Mine did :)

Don&#x27;t burn bridges, but please give honest, constructive feedback.<p>A good employee left recently and gave honest criticism to how projects were managed and other deficiencies that meant myself and others still had a lot of room for improvement.

The first mistake in an exit interview is taking the exit interview.

Never ever under any circumstances whether an employee or a contractor agree to an exit interview. There is nothing for you to gain.<p>Take the lady&#x27;s advice and just say NO!

&quot;Yes, I could tell you what your problems are and how you could make the workplace better, but then I would have to charge you as a consultant.....&quot;

You&#x27;re right, better do it on the internet and post on hacker news. More impact that way