What to and What Not to Ask During an Exit Interview

By: Laura Mohammad
December 8th, 2011

While you never want the conversation to appear scripted, there are key questions you want to touch on when you conduct exit interviews.

Here are important questions to address, compiled with the help of Steve Cohen, president of Missouri-based Labor Management Advisory Group Inc., and Patty DeDominic of California-based DeDominic & Associates.

• Why are you leaving?
• What is the firm doing right? Moderately right? Poorly? Very Poorly?
• How could conditions be improved?
• What would you do to improve the situation that is causing you to leave?
• How do other employees feel about the situation? The firm in general?
• What isn’t the company currently doing, that if it started to do, would improve things?
• Please describe your general feelings about working here. If possible, please tell us why you are leaving.
• Please tell us what the three top things about working here have been for you.
• If you could change three things, what would they be?
• Are there ideas that you have that you wish you could have implemented while you were here?
• Please describe the three best things about working with your supervisor.
• What would you change about our new employee orientation program? In other words, are there things that you wish you had known before or during the beginning part of your employment with our firm?
• Who are the three people who have made the most positive impact on you and your career here at the company?

What not to ask

While it’s important to be on alert for harassment or discrimination complaints or just bad management, you don’t want to fuel the fire. Here are some quick tips to ensure you don’t cross the boundary in the pursuit of honest feedback.

• Don’t ask targeted questions about specific people or issues. While it’s ok to ask for general feedback about a supervisor, for example, you don’t want to insert your opinions into the conversation.
• Don’t feed office gossip.
• Don’t say anything that could be construed as slander.
• Don’t lay the groundwork that could look like you are setting someone up for termination.
• Don’t get into personal issues.
• This is somewhat controversial, but some HR experts say you shouldn’t attempt to convince the employee to change his mind.

Did you find this post helpful?  Yes  No

We appreciate your feedback.

Please share.

Why?  Please select one of the following options:

  Too general
  Not relevant to my industry

  Not well presented
  Information is out of date

  Not what I was looking for
  Other

Please tell us how we can improve our content.
Thank you.

Captcha Fail.

Send

Tweet

You may also be interested in:

		Why You Need an HR Specialist A capable Human Resources (HR) specialist is an invaluable asset to any company. HR specialists can help create and nurture.. more »
		What the Yahoo Scandal Can Teach Us About Resume Fraud Even large companies with deep pockets and vast resources can fall prey to resume fraud if they are not diligent in their screening processes... more »
		Trend Watch: Employee Health Benefit Enrollment Continues To Drop If Americans are required to buy health insurance or face penalties, is your small business ready to absorb the costs?.. more »