Form

Exit Interview Form

The people who leave will tell you what the people who stay won't. A structured exit interview turns a departure into the clearest feedback you'll get all year — if you ask the right questions and actually act on the answers.

Structured feedback
For offboarding
Print or fill on screen

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Why it matters

A departure is expensive — waste the feedback and you pay twice

Handled well, every exit is a free diagnosis of what's quietly driving your best people away.

Hear the unvarnished truthSomeone on their way out has little to lose, and will name problems current employees are still too careful to raise.

Spot patterns before they cost youOne resignation is an anecdote; a consistent form turns many into data you can act on by team, manager and reason.

Protect your employer brandHow someone leaves shapes what they tell their network and write on review sites — long after their last day.

Improve retentionMost regretted exits were preventable, and the reasons cluster. Surface them and you can fix the causes, not the symptoms.

Capture knowledge before it walks outOpen work, key relationships and hard-won context are easy to lose in a handover nobody structured.

Leave the door openA respectful, genuine conversation keeps a strong leaver warm — today's exit can be tomorrow's boomerang hire.

The case

Why structured exit feedback matters

Every organisation runs on two versions of the truth: the one people say in the room, and the one they only admit on the way out. The exit interview is your one reliable window into the second — but only if it is structured. An unstructured chat drifts into pleasantries and produces a warm feeling and nothing you can use.

A consistent form does two things a conversation can't. It makes answers comparable, so you can see whether 'my manager' or 'no growth' comes up once or twenty times. And it forces the questions that matter but feel awkward to ask — the ones whose answers actually change how you hire, manage and keep people.

What goes wrong

Common mistakes

Five ways an exit interview turns into theatre instead of insight.

Run by the wrong personNobody is candid with the manager they're leaving. Exit interviews belong with HR or a neutral party, never the direct line manager.

Left too lateA rushed chat in the final hour, on the way to the door, gets you goodwill and no signal. Do it in the last week, unhurried.

Leading, defensive questions'You weren't really unhappy, were you?' invites the polite answer. Ask open questions and sit with the uncomfortable ones.

Kept but never aggregatedFiled individually and never compared, exit data is invisible. The value is in the pattern across departures, not any single form.

No follow-throughAn exit interview that changes nothing is a formality employees see straight through — and it quietly confirms why they left.

The coverage

What a good exit interview covers

Six areas that, together, explain most departures — and most of what you can do about them.

The role & the work

The real reason for leaving, beyond the headline
Role, workload and whether the job matched the pitch
Growth, development and the path that wasn't there

People & environment

Manager, support and the quality of feedback
Culture, team and whether they felt they belonged
Recognition and how fairly effort was seen

The decision

Compensation and benefits versus the market
What, honestly, would have made them stay
Whether they'd recommend you — or return

FAQ

Questions HR teams ask

Who should conduct the exit interview?

HR or a neutral party — never the departing person's direct manager. People will not speak candidly about the very relationship they are leaving, and if the manager is part of the reason, you'll never hear it. A neutral interviewer is the difference between feedback and flattery.

When is the best time to do it?

In the final week, once notice is served and the initial emotion has settled but the detail is still fresh — not squeezed into the last hour on the way out. Give it unhurried time; a rushed exit interview signals it's a box-tick, and you'll get box-tick answers.

Should exit interviews be confidential?

Yes, and saying so up front is what makes them honest. Aggregate the data and share themes, not verbatim quotes traceable to one person. When employees trust that their candour won't be attributed, you get the real reasons instead of the safe ones.

What if the employee doesn't want to take part?

Keep it voluntary and low-pressure, and offer a written form as an alternative to a live conversation. A forced exit interview produces defensive nothing; a genuinely optional one, framed as 'help us improve for the people staying', usually gets a thoughtful answer.

What do we actually do with the answers?

Aggregate across departures, look for clusters by team, manager and stated reason, and close the loop by acting on what you find. An exit interview no one reviews is theatre — the entire value is in spotting the pattern early enough to fix the cause.