Exit interviews help organizations understand what employees really think about their experience at work, particularly when they are about to leave. What they say can highlight reasons for employee turnover and provide useful ideas for improving management, working practices, retention, and the overall employee experience.
Introduction: Why Exit Interviews Matter
Gallup estimates that replacing an employee can cost from half to twice that employee’s annual salary, depending on the role.
Furthermore, when you consider that 71% of employees discover job opportunities through referrals, it becomes apparent that by conducting effective exit interviews, you can gain insights that may help you improve your brand and attract talented individuals. In other words, exit interviews can be extremely worthwhile.
They also play a vital role in supporting a strong feedback culture – see our guides to feedback in the workplace to understand how feedback practices shape employee engagement and success.
An exit interview is a structured discussion held with an employee who is leaving the company. It’s an opportunity to understand their experiences, gather honest feedback, and inform future improvements in your team or HR practices.
What Is an Exit Interview?
Also sometimes known as a final interview, departure interview, farewell interview, or offboarding interview, an exit interview is the meeting you have with an employee who is departing from your company.
The purpose of the Exit Interview (EI) is to chat with the employee who is leaving and to use this last chance to talk with them to gather extremely valuable information that benefits the company.
The interview, for example, can help you to understand anything that you might be doing wrong as a business (that led to the person leaving), what you are doing well and not doing well as a business, and what other opportunities there are as a company to provide a better employee experience.
Why Are Exit Interviews Important?
1. Invaluable insight into how the company is perceived
This type of interview is so incredibly useful because it can give you insight into how the company is perceived by its employees internally, and by someone who is likely to be more open with their feedback (because they are leaving).
2. Employee leaves with a better impression
Whatever the employee’s experience and reason for leaving, if the employee feels that they at least had a voice when they left and a chance to offload anything they want to say (good or bad), they will feel more positive about the company.
This can also support the employer brand, particularly in terms of how former employees talk about the organization.
3. Employee experience & a chance for positive change
The feedback itself can be used to help shape how you provide onboarding for new employees, how you improve the way you presently treat existing employees, and it can guide how you manage the overall employee experience.
4. Succession planning
Exit Interviews can help to provide information that highlights skills gaps that can be filled and thus improve succession planning.
5. Benchmarking
By interviewing each employee when they leave, over time, you will see clear patterns evolve with the feedback, a valuable step toward measuring feedback success in HR and improving long-term training impact.
If you act effectively on the information you gather from the interviews, you should, for example, see the percentage of employee turnover decrease, and the reasons for leaving should become more positive.
These trends can be further supported by implementing feedback loops, a structured approach to continuous communication and improvement.
One difference, though, between these interviews and traditional performance reviews is that these interviews are largely voluntary. In other words, the employee is leaving, so they are under no pressure to perform or to provide feedback.
How Do You Conduct an Effective Exit Interview?
1. Be Open, Friendly, and Polite
It is essential to remember that the employee who is leaving does not have to make an effort, given that they will soon be gone and have little reason to care anymore about your company.
So, make sure that you set the right tone for the meeting, including through your choice of meeting location and by creating a relaxed atmosphere.
Be friendly and always show respect to your participants because this helps the offboarding process proceed with the right tone.
Taking a positive tone also aligns with best practices for giving positive feedback in the workplace, which helps ensure the conversation ends on a constructive note.
2. Make It Clear That You Appreciate Their Feedback
Following on from the previous point, I recommend stating at the beginning of the interview that you genuinely value the feedback they are about to provide and that you will take their feedback seriously.
Furthermore, it can be worth emphasizing at the start that there are no right or wrong answers and that they really should feel free to say whatever they wish, both good and bad.
3. Ask Open Questions and Limit Closed Questions
The majority of the questions you ask in the exit interview should be open questions so that the employee has the chance to answer in any way they wish.
Closed questions are those that require just a very short answer, such as ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and these questions restrict feedback because the answers tend to be short.
This distinction is crucial when comparing effective vs ineffective feedback in workplace settings.
In an offboarding interview, you want people to elaborate and open up. As such, you need to ask mainly open-ended questions so that they have the chance to talk about anything they wish to.
Exit interviews offer a unique opportunity to gather insights from the final stage of the employee lifecycle, helping to improve the entire experience from onboarding to exit.
A question to start off, such as “How has your overall experience been working for us?” is an open-ended question that works well.
Try to limit the number of yes-or-no questions that you ask.
4. Make Sure to Listen!
We are all guilty of it!
The temptation is always to spend time thinking about what we ourselves want to say next, i.e., what question we will ask next, rather than truly listening.
Use active listening skills to really, truly listen and take in exactly what the employee is saying.
Even if you’re using a prepared exit interview script, be flexible, and let the conversation flow naturally based on what the employee shares.
5. Avoid Being Judgmental
I know you might get bored of me saying this (apologies), but if the employee opens up and speaks honestly, they might provide extremely useful information to you as an HR department or as a manager, especially regarding issues that contribute to employee turnover.
So, for this reason, it is essential that you try to put any personal thoughts aside, make a point to be non-judgmental, and focus on learning whatever you can. Suspend your personal judgments.
Also, avoid leading or judgmental questions!
6. Be Respectful of Time
If you know that your interviewee is short on time, keep to the agreed time and do not extend the interview.
If your interviewee has time, it is still good practice to ask them, after the first half hour or hour, if they are okay to continue.
7. Open Body Language
Do not cross your arms, fidget with a pen, or put your hands in your pockets.
Open body language is important to establish trust.
8. Don’t Be Afraid of Silence
Give participants time to think. Silence for a few seconds after a question is okay.
Sometimes your interviewee will need time to think before answering, so be patient.
Insights gained can feed into broader talent management strategies, especially when patterns emerge across multiple interviews.
When implemented correctly, exit interviews form a vital part of any thoughtful exit strategy in HR, offering a chance to learn, reflect, and improve.
Our Employee Engagement Training Materials help HR teams and managers build a workplace where staff want to stay — a key part of reducing turnover and improving offboarding outcomes.
View the Engagement Training Materials Pack →
What Questions Should You Ask in an Exit Interview?
Some of the questions below will become redundant if the employee has already provided the answer when discussing another question, so not all of the questions will need to be asked.
Likewise, there won’t likely be time to ask all of these questions, so this list is more of a guide for you to pick and choose questions from:
- Can you share some insights about your job and the reasons why you have decided to leave the company?
- How has your overall experience been working for us?
- How did your time with us help you with your career path and career growth?
- Was your job interesting and challenging enough? If not, what could have made it more interesting?
- What did you like and enjoy most about your job?
- How would you describe the guidance and support you received from your manager?
- As a company, what are some things you think we do well, and what areas could we improve on?
- What did we do wrong?
- How do you evaluate our approach to wellness and well-being? Do you feel that we look after staff fairly?
- How was communication in your team and company-wide, in your view?
- Were there any people in particular who really helped you or who you feel really deserve credit?
- How would you describe your relationships with colleagues and the team dynamics? Was there anything that you found challenging in that respect?
- Did you experience any instances of harassment, discrimination, or workplace issues during your time here?
- How could we have improved your employee experience?
- Were you aware of and did you utilize the company’s employee assistance programs or wellness initiatives?
- How do you view the company’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?
- How satisfied were you with the onboarding and orientation process when you joined the company?
- Were you aware of any ethical or moral concerns related to the company during your tenure?
- What information would have been helpful for you to know prior to joining our company?
- Anything at all you would like to say or comment on?
How Should You Plan and Set Up an Exit Interview?
1. Communication
Make it clear ahead of time that the interview will take the form of an informal chat and that you are grateful for their willingness to do the interview.
Set a relaxed and positive tone even before the exit interview takes place.
2. Scheduling
You will want to ensure that there is enough time before the employee leaves to interview them, but also, in another sense, the later the better, because after the interview, they might have even less enthusiasm for their job.
I would suggest doing the interview at the start of the final week of their employment, or 2 or 3 days before they are due to leave.
3. Venue
The location of the departure interview should be one where:
- Privacy will exist, so that the employee feels comfortable speaking openly without fear of anyone else hearing what they say.
- You have the chance to offer the employee a comfortable environment, i.e., a comfortable chair and a relaxed environment, so that they feel relaxed and are more likely to be open with their input.
- The employee does not have to make too much effort to get to the venue – make it easy for them to attend.
4. Being Ready
Make sure to have the list of open-ended questions printed and ready to ask, and have pen and paper ready to take plenty of notes.
And don’t forget the active listening we talked about earlier.
Ready-to-Use Feedback Training Materials
Looking to strengthen feedback skills in your organization? Our editable Giving and Receiving Effective Feedback Training Materials help HR teams, managers, and trainers run practical in-house workshops with ready-made slides, activities, and trainer notes.
What Should Be on an Exit Interview Checklist?
| Task | Check When Done |
|---|---|
| Who will conduct the exit interview (HR, direct manager, or external) | ☐ |
| Compile a set of exit interview questions, tailored to the employee’s role and situation | ☐ |
| Set an exit interview date & venue with the employee | ☐ |
| Ensure you choose a quiet & comfortable venue (where you can meet in privacy) | ☐ |
| Reiterate that the information they share will be kept confidential | ☐ |
| Prepare a simple exit interview form for detailing the departing employee’s responses | ☐ |
| In the interview, ensure they are given time to reflect i.e. do not rush them | ☐ |
| Decide how the feedback will be reviewed and who will see it | ☐ |
Download this Exit Interview Checklist as a PDF →
2 Examples of How Offboarding Interviews Help a Company
Below are two examples of how exit interviews have helped companies. Just to note, though, you do not have to wait until you notice a problem before starting to provide exit interviews.
These interviews should always take place in order to preempt issues that otherwise can occur and cause employees to leave your company.
Case Study 1: Improving Employee Retention
Scenario
A large freight company noticed that over 50% of the new employees they hire leave within the first 12 months.
The company decides to start using exit interviews as one way to try to better understand the issue at hand.
Outcome
The exit interviews prove to be quite revealing and help the company to get to the bottom of the main issue.
They discovered that the main issue was a lack of onboarding, especially in terms of the right training and any kind of guidance for new employees.
As a result, they developed a structured system for helping new employees integrate, including allocating a mentor for each new employee.
Over the next 12 months, employee departures decreased, and overall staff retention improved.
Case Study 2: Workplace Harassment Issue
Scenario
Two employees left the hospital department where they worked, and HR heard concerns that workplace harassment may have contributed to their decision. There had been no official complaints, but HR still wanted to check if there was an issue that needed looking at.
One measure they took was to start conducting exit interviews for employees who left.
Outcome
The exit interviews revealed an underlying issue with harassment and bullying.
As a result, the hospital started giving managers anti-harassment training, and they put in place a better system where employees can give feedback more easily.
Incidents of harassment declined, and overall morale improved.
What Are the Main Types of Exit Interviews?
Ideally, the Exit Interview will take place face-to-face, i.e., be an in-person interview.
1. In-Person
Doing the interview in person will give you a much easier way to develop rapport, and it will be easier for you to read the body language of the employee and to react accordingly.
For example, if you notice the employee using quite defensive body language at the start of the exit interview, you can comfort them by just reiterating that this is confidential and that you are grateful for their input, and perhaps explain that, as a company, you care and want to improve how you look after employees.
2. Online
If the employee leaving is based far away, i.e., if they work online from another country remotely, doing the interview online (i.e., on Skype, MS Teams, or Google Meet) is still a great option.
We found in our research that you just need to be more aware when doing these interviews online to ensure, for example, that:
- You still make sure the interview is confidential (the employee should not, for example, be in a coffee shop or other public space).
- It is harder to read the body language and build rapport, so just be aware of this and ensure you create a positive and friendly tone.
- Sometimes, the person being interviewed might even be more relaxed than normal because they get to do the interview from the comfort of their own home.
3. Other Methods
Methods one or two above are really the best options, but if it is really the only option, then an exit survey or feedback form can be emailed to the employee. Try, where possible, doing the departure interview in one of the first two ways, though if at all possible.
Want to help managers or HR staff build confidence in giving feedback? Try this free constructive feedback activity as a training tool.
Exit Interview FAQs
Are Exit Interviews Confidential?
If you are running this type of interview, then it is important that it is confidential.
If the departing employee is not promised confidentiality, they are far less likely to speak openly, and this will partly defeat the purpose of the interview.
Furthermore, in such interviews, it is ethical to provide confidentiality, particularly given that other employees, i.e., managers, might be discussed.
Who Should Do the Interview?
Ideally, your HR department will do the exit interview, and this, according to Harvard Business Review, is what 70.9% of companies tend to do. The issue, if you are the manager of the person leaving and also doing the exit interview, is that this reduces the chance of feedback being given on their direct management.
