Exit interview questions
Good exit interview questions ask why the person is leaving, what would have kept them, how they experienced their manager, tools and workload, and whether they would recommend the company. Ask the same core set of questions of every leaver, so that the answers can be compared across departures.
The core set
A workable exit interview uses a short core set in four groups: the reason for leaving, what the company could have done, the day-to-day experience, and whether the person would return or recommend. Keep the order fixed. Coursera’s overview of exit interview questions notes that a fixed order makes answers comparable, though a question can be reworded or left out when it does not fit.
Example exit interview questions
| Group | Example question | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Reason | What is the main reason you decided to leave? | The stated trigger, pay, role, manager or move |
| Reason | Was there a specific event that led to the decision? | A single incident you can investigate |
| Retention | What could we have done to keep you? | Fixable causes, in the leaver’s words |
| Experience | What did you like most about working here? | What to protect in hiring and onboarding |
| Experience | What did you like least? | The most common friction across leavers |
| Manager | How well did you get the support and feedback you needed from your manager? | Manager effect, rated on the same scale every time |
| Resources | Did you have the tools and information you needed to do the job? | Process and tooling gaps |
| Return | Would you consider working with us again? | Regretted versus unregretted loss |
| Referral | Would you recommend us to a friend as a place to work? | An overall view of the employer |
Ask about one thing at a time
“Did your manager and your team support you?” cannot be answered if the manager was supportive and the team was not. Split it. Compound questions produce answers that look usable but mean nothing specific. The double barreled questions guide explains how to find and split them.
Pattern reading is the point
One exit interview is an anecdote. Ten with the same structure are a pattern. AIHR recommends asking consistent questions, documenting the key themes, and looking for patterns across teams and departments. That only works if the questions do not change between leavers, so keep a master copy and log the date and team of every interview next to the answers.
Read the reason as a category
Who asks, and how
The interviewer changes the answers. AIHR notes that HR or a neutral person is often a better choice than the direct manager, since a leaver may hold back when the manager is in the room. A written form works when you need the answers to arrive without any interviewer present. Whichever you choose, tell the leaver what will happen to their answers before they start.
A worked example
Take a hypothetical year with twelve leavers. Each exit form is tagged to one reason category by the HR owner, using the same list every time. Suppose nine of the twelve tags are career or workload, and the free-text answers for those nine mention the same two things: no promotion path, and a single person covering a service. The tags tell you where to look; the text tells you what to change.
A simple rule of thumb helps decide when a pattern needs action: if the same category and the same specific complaint appear for three or more leavers in a year, raise it with the manager of each affected team. The threshold is a convention you choose, not a statistic, so write it down before you read the results.
Check before you use the form
- The question list is the same for every leaver, and the version is dated.
- Each question asks about one thing, so an answer means one thing.
- The leaver knows who will read the answers and what will happen to them.
- Reason categories are written down, and every interview is tagged to one of them.
- A named follow-up is offered where a leaver describes a specific incident.
Build it in Seagit Forms
Start from the exit interview form template, which covers the same four groups. Use the one-question-per-page layout if you want leavers to take the questions in order, and mark only the questions you need as required. The Google Sheets destination is a simple way to keep one row per leaver for pattern reading, if your team already uses a spreadsheet for it.
Sources
- Coursera, “8 Exit Interview Questions to Ask Employees” (fixed order, questions can be reworded or omitted).
- AIHR, “50 Exit Interview Questions To Ask Employees” (consistent questions across departures; HR or a neutral interviewer).
Common questions
- How many exit interview questions should I ask?
- Ask a short, consistent set rather than an open-ended interview. Sources on exit interviews, including AIHR, recommend asking the same questions of every leaver so that answers can be compared across departures. Questions can be skipped when they do not apply.
- Who should run the exit interview?
- AIHR suggests that HR or another neutral person is often a better choice than the leaver's direct manager, because the leaver may be more candid. A written exit survey removes the interviewer from the answer altogether.
- Should an exit survey be anonymous?
- It depends on what you need. An anonymous survey makes candid answers more likely, but you cannot follow up on a specific complaint. A named form lets HR act on one case. Many teams offer both: a named conversation and an anonymous written form.