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Comment by dickeytk | Hacker News Reader

Call me a naïf, but I think exit interviews are a great way to speak candidly to skip-level managers about dissatisfactions you have—with the aim of making the company you’re leaving potentially a bit better for your colleagues.

EDIT: I think “feedback” here is somewhat vague. You guys are talking about issues there would be no point in raising. For me this is not systemic issues.

I would bring up more minor things, “I think Chris would be better suited to work on XYZ project”, “The company work parties make me a bit uncomfortable with the amount of alcohol.” “I know Jane wants to be a manager but I’m not sure she’d be so great at it.”

I think these fall into the realm where I wouldn’t bring it up before the exit interview, but they might provide some benefit that skip levels would be able to provide.

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I think it's both admirable and naive. My experience with upper management is that it rots from the top, so if you're quitting due to systemic issues or because of your boss, it's very likely due in part to upper management's inability to listen before something blows up.

In game theory terms it's pretty much all downside. If you say nothing or if management sends exit interviews straight to the recycle bin, there is zero payoff for you and zero payoff for anyone else. If you say something and management is bad at listening, you burn bridges and nobody else benefits. If you say something and management is good, you get nothing and others after you benefit. More often than not management is bad at listening. In other words, it never improves anything for you and rarely improves anything for others.

I used to be a strong believer in giving honest feedback during exit interviews, but I definitely don't anymore. If upper management actually cared, they would have gotten and acted on the same feedback from current employees, before they quit. I no longer believe in offering crappy management the privilege of a "I quit" wake-up call at the risk of my own professional reputation/relationships.

if they really cared to fix it, it wouldn't take you leaving.

i guess it depends on who's doing the exit interview. i could see it being beneficial if you have a lot of experience and trust with the manager doing the exit interview (e.g because he managed you before he got promoted). but if you've barely spoken to the person doing the exit interview, it's best to politely decline or simply shut up, so as not to burn bridges.

In my experience, the problem with your thinking is that it doesn't play out that way.

If management is open to criticism and will actually use that feedback to make changes, you probably realize that fact and have already been giving candid feedback.

If they're not open to it, then your openness is just going to burn a bridge. It feels good, and you may not care in the moment, but at beat it's neutral. At worst it hurts you down the road.

I've experienced this indirectly, I was young and naive and figured it'd be best to be honest with why I left a prior startup I was working for, citing issue with my boss' management.

Turns out people in that startup knew my boss, didn't get the interview and was blacklisted from my prior boss even though we were on good terms.

Learned that lesson the hard way.

Exit interviews can lead to you being marked as "Do not rehire" depending on the degree of your candor.

It's obviously your call, but for the most part, I've just been as vanilla as possible when leaving, maybe remarking about the lack of compensation increase while working for a state budget determined salary position. That one, everyone groks and I didn't have it bite me in the butt when I came back to work for the local university a year later.

i think that your feedback can and will be misinterpreted to fit a narrative about you leaving. your feedback will also be regarded as biased (you are leaving, right?).

the best time to provide feedback is while you still have the job. when you see something that does not work speak up. when the time to go comes, nothing you say should surprise anyone therefore no need for the exit interview and everyone having a bad time in this emotionally charged moments.

Exit interviews are mainly used for one purpose--documenting any issues that might be used against the company if you choose to sue them.

HR is not your friend.

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