Exit interviews are a trap

You should definitely go to an exit interview.

In the case of a sour breakup, you should 100% lie. Just say it was great but you were in need for a change. Don't dramatize the lying part because you lied to get in and the employer lied about how great their company is. Work is a lie, play the game.

In the case of a drama-free breakup, when pressed for feedback and the room being receptive of it, do share your thoughts. But toned down, in a light hearted manner. Comment on things and processes, not people. This gives the impression "helpful until the end".

Both ways are a clean exit, with no bridges burned. There might come a time in your life where you're less desirable on the market, having intact relations can make a huge difference then.

You should internalize the dishonesty as a type of strength, because that's what it is in this context. In a sour breakup, you're given the perfect opportunity for revenge, with little immediate consequences.

Your ex-boss Tim is an asshole. He knows he is. And you know he is. You now have the opportunity to finally say it to his face.

Applying silence in this situation is powerful. It says so much more. I could harm you right now, but I chose not to. This radiates self control, which is widely respected. Meanwhile, Tim was looking forward to a good burn and argument, but didn't get any. He feels submissive, like a Roman emperor giving him a thumbs up, allowed to live another day.

And that's how you play it. Alternatively, you can be 21 years old and post on Medium "7 reasons why I quite company X after 8 months". Let me know how that goes.

I made the mistake and told the truth one time early in my career.

I got fired, err... I wasn't retained after a multi-month temp period, and was brought in to be fired, then exit interviewed.

I was upset, but stuck to the truth. My direct boss was passive aggressive, didn't like me, and excluded me from the team. His code was awful, in the long term wasn't maintainable, and wouldn't be able to meet the needs of the road map because of poor design decisions. Some cliques had formed to the determent of the tiny company.

Unfortunately after that exit interview, it became extremely difficult for me to get work in that community. Unknown to me at the time, I made an enemy of my direct boss, who had much deeper connections with that area tech community than I ever could have imagined. I only found out after making friends with someone else who told me they had heard nothing but bad things about me.

It was a lesson learned. After a many years, and a move, it is no longer a problem, but it derailed me for quite a while.

As someone who has done exit interviews on both sides some quick notes:

1) I would dial back dramatic sweeping criticism. Now is not the time to relitigate every grievance, claim doom will befall company etc.

2) Treat it as any other feedback cycle. Here's what was working well, here some areas I might look at improving. Keep it light and friendly.

3) Do a slight "I" perspective. I'm moving for higher pay and to have a bit of a bigger role / influence on decisions etc. I'm moving in part because progression options were unclear to me. I'm moving in part to be able to do a masters program with an EAP program, start a retirement plan match (401K) etc.

I had great references from all my former employers AND I did the exit interviews they wanted. They were friendly.

I left one very very cushy job, did a very friendly exit interview, they hired me back on as a consultant at x times my normal rate. It really worked out better. I'd had a split reporting structure internally (nightmare), and when I came back consulting each project had a clear "customer" I could work with / manage against. Everyone was happier. When I left I just said, One area that was tricky for me was the split reporting structure which made it harder to prioritize my work. When I consulted I had a point of contact clearly defined.

I told my boss at the time that the reason I was leaving was because they where forcing us back into the office to do meetings from our desk in the middle of the pandemic (which it was, 18mths ago June).

I also told him that if they didn't change that policy they'd haemorrage their most senior staff.

Of the 9 lead devs they had at the time (including me) they lost 7 over the next 8mths (I already knew three where leaving in the interview just hadn't announced it yet).

It took them another 8mths to decide that remote might be an option, after literal decades of experience on their systems (not me I was a relatively new hire) walked out the door.

Now they are constantly posting vacancies for leads and fighting in a market where a lot the good jobs offer remote first if wanted.

Now if my boss was smart he'd have seen the writing on the wall, saved his dev team knowledge and could have hired before the boom in remote dev.

The thing you realise as you move up in seniority is that the people in "charge" are really no brighter than the people they are in charge off, he was my boss because he was the senior of the two devs on the original spinoff company and so just moved up a level every time they expanded, he was a fairly terrible manager of people and didn't have the backbone to deal with his boss when it was necessary.

References really aren't a think in the UK (at least no one has ever checked mine that I know off) so I was less concerned about that and I had zero intention of ever working for that company again so if I set the bridge on fire, so be it.

I’ve had 2 exit interviews and both were good experiences.

The first scheduled the exit interview 5 months after leaving my job. Clearly said that they wanted to make sure I was comfortable in my new job before asking for feedback. I think the gap of a few months is a good mechanism to get honest feedback if someone is willing to provide it (and is what I now do for exit interviews myself)

Second time was with a manager I really trusted (I was leaving for other reasons). Gave him a list of the 15 things that I thought needed changing. When I visited almost a year later he showed me the list still on his office wall, with 12/15 items crossed off.

I think game theory might optimize for your own immediate gain, but overall many managers and companies want to do good, and your feedback might actually help if delivered the right way.

Generally spot on in my experience. I've only ever agreed to one, and it was a mess, with the interviewer getting very upset and pushing back on all of my answers. Since then I politely decline. I've had one boss tell me it wasn't optional, to which I responded that I'd be happy to leave earlier if he wanted to enforce the requirement. He swiftly backed down, as we hadn't yet finished knowledge transfer.

I've never once in my long career seen constructive feedback from exit interviews make its way back to the leadership or management orgs.

I have seen a top engineer tell his CEO why he was leaving and everything wrong with the project (and he said this, I'm sure, very politely and with the intent of helping them). He made the critical mistake of sharing where he was going next (a FAANG). The CEO of old-company called VP of new-company, and the new company withdrew their offer. Yup, Top Engineer was then fully unemployed, his reward for being honest. Lawsuit, you say? No, my friend didn't have $500k or whatever sitting around for legal fees. He just got a new job, and is fine now. Still, lesson learned.

I have no idea what the author is on about. The exit interview is often the best 30 minutes of a bad job!

You can tell them what they are doing well, what they aren't doing well, praise good employees and criticize bad managers.

If you are both professionals, it's a cathartic experience that supports your remaining coworkers. If they are not professional, they weren't going to give you a good reference anyway. But if you are an unprofessional neurotic intent on treating Greg from HR like a captive corporate agent, I guess you will probably have a bad time?

Is everyone really doing exit interviews this wrong? At my company the exit interview is with HR. All feedback is anonymous, rolled up with non-exit feedback, and delivered to managers/leads periodically so it can't be easily linked back. As a manager, this has been extremely helpful. HR is not always your friend, but in my scenario there is really nothing to lose.

I made this mistake early in my career.

HR setup an exit interview that was meant to be anonymous. Asked questions about improving the department. I took it seriously I was direct in my feedback thinking that I was helping my coworkers have a better workplace in the future and helping the company identify potential issues. I was wrong. HR immediately gave my feedback to the boss because the HR person and my boss were friends. Nothing changed in the department but I created an enemy with someone whom I had a good working relationship with. Lesson learned.

If asked to give an exit interview just say everything was great, you are sad to go, but are pursuing a great opportunity that you can't turn down. 99 percent of the time your honest direct feedback will do nothing to improve a situation and only burn a bridge for you.

In an exit interview I've done, it was clear to me that HR was trying to spin a story about why I was leaving that didn't align with what I was saying or trying to say. They were nice enough, but it was full of questions that appeared to be designed to invalidate my thoughts or feelings. For example, the question: "But did you have the resources you needed to do your job?" to my point of "I felt like I was set up to fail on these projects."

They also focused on single points that were actually just a small part of a much larger picture, emphasizing them as though to suggest that they were the singular reason for me leaving. It was a frustrating experience, and it felt dishonest. I felt like they didn't want the real reasons I was leaving, they wanted a story that didn't make the company's processes and management look flawed.

Great advice here.

HR is NEVER your friend. They are not on your side. DO NOT TRUST HR.

Anonymous feedback is never anonymous. DO NOT TRUST HR.

Here's the deal... Exit interviews, as a manager, were annoying because they could ding me on my annual reviews. And that's fine, except... people would complain about things I had no control over. "Oh, my manager made me do something stupid that I didn't like!" Yup, I get it. Only it wasn't ever me making them do that, it was my boss, or a client. And still, as the manager, I'd get blame.

And you know what I did with that information? Every time someone trashed me, or the company, in an exit interview, I'd remember it. And 2-3 jobs from now, when you need a rec, or you need someone to say something nice about your time at my company, I'd be unavailable. Or if the new place you were applying called, and asked me, "Do you have any feedback about X candidate?" You better believe I had things to say about the people who were negative.

The advice in the post are spot on. Keep your mouth shut. Odds are it's not your boss that's making the bad decisions. Odds are the culture is exactly how the people at the top want it to be. Anything you dislike, it's likely out of your manager's control. Trashing them is just a sign you don't see the big picture. And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. And odds are you'll need them to say something nice about you at some point.

Good lord, what terrible advice. If anyone is reading this and thinking of adopting his ideas, please consider (with the exception being if you're still early in your career):

1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins

2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill

3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose her job, but it's not going to do her any favours either

My counter-advice then, is:

Be honest every day, and do your work well. If you get in trouble for telling the truth, that's not a company you need to be at. I have yet to get into trouble for being honest, even when when it the truths were difficult to swallow, but of course it depends on where you are in your career.

Also important; don't be a dick. There's a difference between telling the truth to constructive ends, and being a whiny critical negative contrarian.

EDIT: For formatting

I have never done any exit interview, if I had to do one I would just say I got a better opportunity somewhere else. Generally speaking, if you need me to tell you what’s wrong with a place where you spend 8 hours per day, then maybe it’s better for you to spend your days doing another job, but I also tolerate companies because in this system I’m required to have a job to have an acceptable life , but inside I hate any company and the point of this fake "show" that they care about improving is such a bullshit that to me it’s frustrating to be asked to take part in it so that ‘we can learn and improve’ just please

Funny as it is, you are right. In a past life, with a past company (now out of business), and a past boss (I intentionally write "boss", as this guy had nothing to do with a leader) I made all of the wrong choices on the points you marked. Although, I had/still have a great reputation in my industry, it happened exactly as you said... after I moved to my next step in my career, rumors start to appear that my old boss said bad things about me. Luckily, his own reputation went all the way to the ground and under in the next year, and the untruths he said did not make any harm. But this is real, if I had left without going head first into this guy and answered the exit interview questions impassively, I would have saved a lot of negative emotions. Just the feeling of telling everything straight was too much to resist for my broken ego. Now I know best, I am leaving, who cares... the next day I am gone, page is closed, spent the energy for future positive, than for past/current negative.

HR exercises are really not to your advantage anyway, running down the clock and keeping it bland are the best choices, just like any other HR exercise.

My issue with the author's claims is that everything is framed in a "what's in it for me" reference. Even when they decided to break their own rule and go to an exit interview, the decision was made because there was the "didn’t think I had any downside risk."

There are times when your personal choices may need to take a backseat to more important goals. If you are really committed to a mission, even one you've decided to leave, I would think you'd want to give feedback that can help improve the chances of that mission being successful, even if there's a personal downside risk.

Think about something like the Boeing 737-MAX. Imagine a software engineer who decides to leave because they think the safety culture is really terrible. Would you prefer that employee voice their opinion during exit, despite the chances that it may make a change, or just quietly slip out the back?

I have to disagree. At least in some very specific circumstances.

First a bit of context. In Germany, some companies have something called a works council. A body of employees that represents the interests of the workforce vis-à-vis the employer.

The works council has certain rights and is well protected against reprisals. And it is bound to confidentiality.

For works councils, exit interviews are a valuable way to learn about problems that have previously flown under the radar. And in most cases, the works council is interested in improving things.

In many cases, it has the means to do so. It may take some time, as everything does, but in my experience exit interviews can help.

I like these. I use my exit interview to praise and give positive feedback about my co-workers.

There can be an upside to an exit interview. If you have equity in the company, then suggesting things in an exit interview that will be a positive change for the company can benefit you.

Note, that the likelihood of a company implementing changes based on your exit interview feedback will be pretty low.

What’s the point of exit interviews really?

I had an exit interview earlier this year. All the constructive criticism I had, I had already given, during my tenure. And as Jacob alludes to, there’s no point in venting in an exit interview.

I got burned once when my company did a annual employee survey. My boss determined who gave the anonymous answer and fired me eventually.

I'm a politician first and software engineer second.. I have _never_ given anyone or any sub-organization bad feedback, directly or indirectly. I've advised someone on something that could help them be better, but I've never externalized it as grumpiness I have.

It's never worth it. Smile and nod, disagree and commit, focus on whats in your control, and tend to your network. If they're not paying you for an honest exit interview, don't give them one. Just focus on hitting the targeted outcomes, however that may be. That's all that really matters

So many comments here are disagreeing with the article because people commenting have had positive or neutral experiences in exit interviews. But he's talking to the people who haven't already been through enough jobs to be able to assess whether the particular exit interview they're going into is safe. He also describes very specific criteria people can use to assess whether they are in a position to offer critical feedback during the interview.

I really appreciate this article, because this is one of those specific moments in a job where walking in unaware can affect you really badly, for a long time. Making people aware of that situation, and offering a framework for how to think about it, can be really helpful to people who are in their first jobs.

Why does HR do exit interviews anyway? Basically it's a CYA technique - they want to try to detect lawsuit-related risk like harassment. Maybe as a secondary if they get a lot of bad reports about a manager they might investigate. But mostly it's formalized box-ticking on their part, and should be on yours too.

What's with the assumption that you are quitting a job because it sucks? A lot of times people have to quit or change jobs for their own reasons and only have positive things to say.

And if the job does suck, who cares if you burn bridges there on the way out? You only need to maintain bridges that go to good places.

For those starting out in their career in the US: They do not play fair and they will lie about you and talk behind your back. By they, I mean the people that do the hiring. When you apply at one place , they will contact buddies at your current or former place of work even without your consent and you have no chance to fight or dispute that (and it is also illegal, not that they care). It's not a level playing field, if you leave a bad work place, just be glad you were able to leave. Hopefully, job market economics will get them to change. Be forgettable, as in how people will forget everything about you except how you made them feel.

I tried to skip an exit interview once, the HR person was late to her own meeting. After waiting for 5 minutes, I left. You can bet she called me back in there. Felt so good to tell her one reason I was leaving the company was that no schedule was ever on time in the entire company, ever, including my exit interview.

I told her straight up that I was going to be honest because I had no intention of ever working there again. Being honest really felt great.

Apparently, I was memorable - ran into the HR person in the grocery store years later and she made a point to chat me up.

I've had two exit interviews and I was brutally honest on both, and both times I ended up forming stronger relationships as a result of my brutal honesty. The first time I left for significantly more money, so it's an easy way to leave on good terms. During my exit interview, I gave honest feedback about the pay-scales and where I thought pay should be. After my departure, my entire team and the incoming new hires were given pay raises to exactly what I discussed with the hiring director and manager. While the author may argue that this doesn't benefit me directly, it benefited me indirectly in that my colleagues will remember me as the guy that helped them get more money and my superiors remember me as the guy that gave honest feedback and left for more money.

The second time around, I had a boss who I felt was a terrible leader and micromanager. I actually ended up having 3 exit interviews.. one with my boss, which was very short and I told him how he and his management style was directly the reason I was leaving. The next two interviews were with the CEO and an investor in the company where I was once again brutally honest about my bosses management style and some other negative feedback about the state of the company. While I may have burned a bridge with my direct boss, I formed a good relationship with a CEO and PE investor who even offered to help place me in any of the companies they invest in if I chose to stay with the company.

It's great to give your take on something, but the assertive titles on an opinionated generalization are getting annoying.

I agree with the article. If you leave, feedback is not worth it. I always gave honest feedback at exit interviews and felt like shit for a while afterwards. And I don’t understand why companies are doing this, honestly. Take feedback from your employees and really listen! What is the gain to ask for feedback to someone leaving the company? Is it more honest? Then you have a cultural problem because it means your employees are afraid to give honest feedback.

I think I just came up with a new rule: You should never be in an exit interview with anything new to say. If you find yourself revealing anything in the exit interview that the company doesn't already know, you should've brought it up awhile back!

I generally agree, but it also depends why you left.

If you left because you hate your boss, yeah probably pass. If you left because you hate your co-workers, yeah probably pass. If you left because you hate the new direction of the company - pass.

If you loved working there but want to work in a different field, your buddy started a company, you got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move to France - no reason not to go, tbh. If it doesn't work out, they'll happily have you back.

Mostly agree, though I think some companies do gather and act on feedbacks that they get over and over. I'd give real feedback if it's innocuous and positive:

"It would be cool if we had more social events!" "I liked working with product and I wish there was better collaboration between product and engineering orgs."

But I stay away from criticizing individuals or the company at large. Nothing to gain at this stage.

Seems pointlessly Machiavellian. Sure, theoretically, you could get burned by what you say in an exit interview. I've never heard of it happening. Typically you end up being the 20th person to say what you said.

If your company is so poisonous they won't give you a referral based on feedback they requested, they probably wouldn't give you a referral no matter what.

The best exit interview I ever gave was with the incoming security manager. I laid out all the gory details for him, told him what he was going to find and where to look for it. It was a delightful interview. The organization didn't really want to deal with the reality, but it was a pretty big business risk nonetheless.

Sadly, for them, he promptly quit a week later. I don't know for sure if it was my exit interview that convinced him.

Other than that, I generally follow the advice in the article. Keep it kinda bland. But that's mostly because I'm old and very experienced, and by the time I leave it's because management has clearly indicated they're not going to change things. I've already told them the problems, because I'm not afraid of retaliation. So everyone is on the same page, and if I don't like that page, I step away.

It helps to have a strong network of good former coworkers so I can just find another gig if this one doesn't suit me.

Sometimes they're a trap. Sometimes people genuinely want to know your opinion and if they did anything wrong in your view. Sometimes that VP wants to know if the rumors are true that your direct manager is planning to return to Andromeda. Sometimes it's just good to clear the air with your manager, especially if there were some contentious issues.

And even if they disagree as to the causes or solutions that you propose, it's really good to at least have the conversation -- to communicate! This is the last time you'll ever get a chance to (sort of) speak freely.

Really, these people are all humans too. Well, most of them, anyway.

So, seriously, lean toward taking the exit interview, even with full knowledge of the (true) downsides listed in the article versus few upsides for you. Just gauge the exit interview based on the person who's sitting across the table.

Yeah... the time to try to help them has gone by then. Nobody will listen because it's much easier to blame the guy that's not there any more, and let the beat go on.

> They might decide not to give a reference they would have before the exit interview.

At least in the UK, there aren't good or bad reference. It basically boils down to "Yep they worked here, for this long, this was their role." All of the other possible outcomes mentioned are illegal.

I agree with the suspicions, but I disagree with the conclusions.

If you want to give feedback in an exit interview, you should; BUT NEVER GIVE FEEDBACK IN ANGER! If you think you're going to be angry in the exit interview, don't give feedback. If you're angry at a coworker, don't give them feedback in that moment.

If you want to give feedback to a manager, probably don't do that! Asking questions can be good. Hypothetical scenarios can help. It might make you angry that you can't be direct with feedback to a manager, but that is generally part of the bargain.

So how to handle an exit interview?

Never accuse. You'll never know the whole situation.

Describe your own experience. It may be painful, but you can speak truthfully about your own experience.

Describe how your experience could have been better, without accusation.

Exit interviews seem to be only helpful for the remaining coworkers if one is not afraid of criticizing poor management or mismanagement if that is the case. But in reality they're not taken seriously so why bother anyway?

If you are fearful of telling the truth in an exit interview or avoiding it entirely out of fear of burning bridges, I think you may have more problems to work through. This is your one opportunity for closure and to say your piece to bring you peace.

The harsh reality is that plenty of people vent about why they are leaving teams, orgs, divisions, and companies. Nothing changes and then more people leave. Then those managers who got all the feedback leave and people start to see the house of cards fall down.

If a single person or company dictates your career for any reason, you have much bigger problems to worry about.

Jacob, this is...so disappointing.

Avoid, be bland, lie? There is no integrity here.

The upside of being honest is 1) preserving your integrity, and 2) most people who leave share their reasons for leaving with someone ultimately, which usually gets back to the team they left. If you share a different story and your old team finds out later, it's just going to create a worse impression.

How about: find a clear but respectful way of articulating why you are leaving. And if the complaints are longstanding, you don't need to go on and on about them, you can just reference past conversations and be done with it.

One of the hosts on the podcast Softskills Engineering shared a story around Exit Interviews.

Exit interviews don't provide any benefit to the person leaving, so the out-the-door coworker asked their remaining teammates what they would like him to say during his exit interview. The remaining teammates essentially said that they would like more competitive pay, so the departing person kept bringing everything back to that topic during the interview. A few months after he left, the remaining teammates let him know that they all received raises.

> They could tell you they’re fine to be a reference, but when someone calls they could say bad things. They could refuse to confirm your employment to a background investigator. They could call your new company and tell them you were fired for fraud.

These things are almost certainly illegal (IANAL) and could open up a firm employing such tactics to significant legal liability. In many larger companies, internal policies dictate that reference checks should only be answered with confirmation of employment dates and nothing else, due to the possibility of lawsuits.

The biggest risk of being honest in a way that reflects negatively on your employer in an exit interview is burning a bridge. This is a fairly minimal risk if the exit interview is with HR, though you maybe flagged as a potential trouble-maker or something.

I worked with a guy once who hated video calls. They made him nervous, and he felt strongly in async communication (inspired heavily by Basecamp's literature). The rest of the team/company was more open to video calls alongside written communication, and so he found a job elsewhere. In his exit interview, he brought this up as a problem, and so even though we didn't abandon synchronous calls, we had a bit more insight into the invariants in our team culture that would help us when hiring as well as when communicating internally.

The main (possible) positive value for exit interviews is for the coworkers you left behind, if you want to use your departure as the last chance to help your teammates. The author also mentioned this, and if I were to say anything in my exit interview, that's what I would use it for.

That said, my motivation for staying at a job is mostly because of my comrades, and if I decide to leave, it's probably because all the people I liked have already left.

A simple heuristic I go by: consider the weight that the organization applies to feedback from you while you are working there and the weight allocated to advice from total strangers with nothing to do with the organization. The moment you announce you are leaving, and feedback or advice you offer will probably be weighted even lower than either of those. In many organizations, it drops to near-zero the day you decide to leave the team.

In fact, the multiplier goes negative after someone exits in most companies I've experienced, resulting in them being blamed for recent decisions they were party to, even if they seemed fine at the time (scapegoating). Everything the departed touched is ripe for second-guessing.

If I want to give advice or feedback, I do so early and respectfully. If I don't feel heard and decide to leave, I won't be repeating it because its weight is sinking like a stone between announcing my departure, the exit interview, and joining the ranks of ex-employees.

Any self-serving catharsis isn't worth the damage done to the professional relationships, which the author covers nicely.

HR has truly become the most corrupt organization in a company in 2022 -- basically the KGB, and they work like it as well. Information flows in only, but the information needed to protect employees from sexual harassment doesn't flow back to the people who need it most. They only talk openly to management, and they extort the employees into silence through threats.

The headline had me clicking assuming I would disagree - as I think "trap" assumes nefarious intentions that I don't think are there most of the time.

But I found I agreed with the main points:

1) There's little chance your frank feedback will have a positive impact

2) There's small but real chance of a downside you can't fully quantify. Even this possibility may cause you stress.

What I think is missing is that before you decide to leave, do give honest feedback. I don't think shying away from conflict for fear of retaliation is a good idea - you can shape the place you are still in. But once you are gone, I think the chances are smaller, and you have already decided to left in any case, which probably means you believe whatever you are leaving about will not change.

If you have been giving honest feedback all along, and then do decide to leave, the people you trust will already know why you are leaving and can choose to take the signal that you felt strongly enough to leave to heart if they chose.

It honestly sounds like the author simply doesn't know how to effectively give feedback. This line is really telling:

> So, the best case scenario is a very unlikely chance of a positive outcome, and even if you get that positive outcome, it’s of no direct value to you.

What if you own equity? What if you just want to leave places better than you found them and any hope this last meeting would help is enough for you?

Anchoring your entire spiel with "look I really want to preface this by saying I'm telling you this because I'm hoping enough people leaving over it will finally get the company to take it seriously. I care about <company> because I have friends here I really wish well for, and I have equity in the company and want to see it succeed" then go on to provide clear and actionable (even if uncomfortable feedback).

Examples of this kind of feedback:

* Troy has been a Product Manager of <X Team> for 8 months now and has yet to product roadmaps that fire up myself and the rest of the engineers. This is starting to impact how we think about technical foundations work and leaves engineers feeling bored on one of our most mission critical teams. <Troy's manager> should have a pulse on this by now, and I would hope would do something otherwise <Company> will continue to lose great engineers.

Obviously this is all case-by-case, but it feels like any company where the fall out was so bad you need to lie wouldn't give you positive references anyway. I don't know probably my own biases, but I automatically assume people are bad at giving feedback when I read salty articles like this. I've been in several jobs where I've been able to give cutting feedback in an exit but also maintained great relationships with folks. The underlying theme has always been to learn how to give effective feedback and give it frequently. Effective means concise, actionable, measurable.

I could have used this advice in the last couple of weeks. I chose to be more candid because I thought I had a good rapport with my management and I was only things I’d already complained about. I guess I have a few regrets now and it’s very likely I’ll end up working with them again so hopefully they took the feedback positively.

I don’t think they are a trap. You can make constructive criticism without being personal. A lot of times middle management is implementing policy that it didn’t have a say in.

At the end of the day, everyone is human, and most people are more concerned with handling their own problems than making life hard for others.

And if the company has a functional business quality plan, they should be reviewing data from all the exit interviews on a regular basis (maybe quarterly or semi annual). You are just one data point. No matter how brilliant you think you are, they are going to be looking for major trends. Like, everyone made lateral moves for more pay, maybe our pay scales aren’t competitive, or we aren’t recognizing success appropriately.

The exit interview isn’t like pointing at the ship’s unmanned helm and letting the watch officer know the pilot has been in the head for 2 quarters.

> Let’s consider the upside: maybe the company changes! Probably not, though: whatever the criticism is, it’s highly unlikely it’s something new.

Yes, highly unlikely for anything to change at the company you're leaving. Beyond what he outlines here, one big consideration is that many companies have cult-like characteristics. If you decide to leave the cult...err, I mean company you're now considered an unreliable source of information anyway ("who would choose to leave this company where we are going to change the world!", "Obviously this is a disgruntled employee with issues." etc.). Maybe you were once a true believer in the cult's... err, I mean, company's mission when you first joined, but became disillusioned over time. Many others who remain there will still be true believers.

The one piece missing from this is article is the fact that some people do actually have a vested interest in the continued success of the company even after leaving (e.g. option/stock holders). Not that your feedback will likely have any material effect on the value of the company, but you never know!

The article could have ended here:

>And even if your feedback does finally start some change – it’s too late for you. You’re already out the door. The time to fix the problems was months ago, before you got fed up and started your job search.

I have left two FAANG companies and have never given anything resembling the kind of feedback they requested in the exit interview. I have always kept it to the 'bland' described in this article -- all the reasons I left were personal and had nothing to do with management, the company, or anything. No praise, no criticism, just my choice to move on.

I see no reason to expend any energy, not even 15 minutes, to improve a company I'm leaving.

It's the same reason I don't leave feedback on Yelp, or talk to managers at restaurants about my experience, etc... I just move on.

In one exit interview I said to HR: "Working in this project is like watching a bad movie. I wouldn't watch a bad movie even if you pay me because I cannot un-see it." She responded: "Like watching Sharknado" "Yes!" I replied. Best-exit-interview-ever.

> You can certainly refuse to go (you already quit; what are they going to do about it?)

You haven't quit already, you're quitting after the meeting (likely 2 weeks from your notice). Presumably if they were the retaliatory type then they could fire you for not attending, right?

I have many years of work experience and have worked in 10 companies so far. I always ended up sugar coating my feedback in nearly all of the exit interviews. However, this time around in 2021 during my 10th workplace I decided to be honest.

Positive feedback: I praised all the great coworkers, great managers that I worked with, good senior people that I worked with, the companies policies, etc.

Negative feedback: I had left the company because of my last manager who was both toxic and incompetent (my previous managers were great leaders). He had no idea about the work that we did, nor did he have any rudimentary leadership skills. I ranted out everything (it was very soothing) even though I knew he was friends with the HR team. But for once in my life I decided to be super honest and shared what I felt and shared examples, data, emails, etc. It felt very good and I left the company without any emotional baggage.

Latest update: I just came to know that another colleague who had left around the same time had also given a similar feedback about this toxic manager's behavior. The HR decided to share their objective observations but nothing happened as this manager is friends with the senior management too. However, the person who replaced me was an expat from Europe (I and the IT company is in southern Asia and expats are treated like gods here). The expat had the same experience within one month of her joining and she too left the company within 3 months because of this toxic manager. She was not as kind during her exit interview and she also shared a formal complaint. Now the cat was out of the bag and the HR was forced to intervene and more people started sharing their issues about this toxic manager. Long story short: This toxic manager is now in big trouble (I can't share more info here).

So my personal opinion now is: Always share honest feedback about jerks in your exit interviews. You might be doing a good deed in the long run for many people. Sharing an honest feedback during an exit interview is like 'not littering'. If everyone starts doing it, then the city will always be clean for you and for me and for our families :)

Great advice.

If you really feel like "sticking it to them", just write anonymous reviews on Glassdoor. Really go into details. Let your feedback be visible to everyone; if you think its useful, someone currently working at the company will bring it up, I guarantee you.

I left a job a few years ago and put the entire management on blast because they could not fathom the singular reason for leaving was poor compensation.

A few months later some former coworkers told me that everyone in the company got a surprise raise a few weeks after I left.

There are ways of being non-accusatory, but also presenting the exit interviewer with food for thought. First, give a lot of genuine praise during the interview. You must have like something about the job, mention it. All of it. Next, explain the truth about why you're leaving and the problems you saw, but do it in a way that is as charitable as possible to the person(s) that are implicated. Avoid direct character insults. Acknowledge genuine reasons why that situation may have legitimately been happening. I believe there are ways to be mature and candid. And if you can do that, it's often possible not to burn any bridges, but to also reveal the truths you want to reveal.

An organization that depends on honesty during an exit interview is already failed. This is not your time to vent, nor is it constructive to give criticisms. Say your thanks, shake the hands and move on. Anything else is uncompensated consulting.

FWIW, the hypothetical the author poses of the retaliatory company (because it's a hypothetical) isn't mediated by whether or not you do the exit interview.

Your previous company can decide to hand out false bad referral signal because they didn't like your face, regardless of whether you agree to do the exit interview. Hell, if it's the kind of folks who might give out false bad referrals, they could do it because you refused the exit interview (in their minds, you snubbed them).

Without knowing more about an employer, I don't think you can apply this "Exit interviews are a trap" concept universally.

For me the deciding factor of how much honest feedback to provide in the exit interview is determined by who is interviewing me. If it is a routine step of the HR checklist, then most likely the feedback is not really going to have any impact and it is not worth the effort (and also potential risk, however small that may be) to provide detailed comments. However, if the exit interview is conducted by someone whom I trust and has potential pull within the leadership org (manager, manager’s manager, director, VP , etc.) then I am more than happy to give a detailed list of what’s good and what’s bad.

Seems like the same could be said for "360 reviews", where you're encouraged to review your managers.

Should you avoid those too? There is probably little chance that things will change. Maybe I'm too optimistic.

As it happens I had an exit interview today. I have no idea what the author is talking about but I don't think HR retribution because of feedback is a thing in London, at least not as far as I know. I don't care if there's nothing for me to "gain". You know, not everything in life has to be for your benefit. Sometimes what people say is what they really mean and they're not trying to subvert you or trap you.

I will be honest until the day I die. I hate the avoidant, sugar coating culture we've developed. Brutal honesty is a path to big change.

I quit my last job because my team ganged up on me and held an "intervention meeting" because I broke the production environment after my code had passed local development and staging. The person who found out didn't tell me, but silently fixed it and called for a meeting. I incidentally saw we had a meeting with a vague title, and asking about it, my team members avoided elaborating.

Eventually, the meeting was a scolding. I wouldn't accept this kind of behavior, so I stood my ground, switched teams a week later and "worked from home" on my last week on the team. (This essentially amounted to not showing at morning meetings, and not doing any work. Not voluntarily -- I refused to be in a meeting with them, and I couldn't make myself do anything that had a positive impact for them.) I delivered value and had a good time with my other team for another 4 months, after which I switched jobs when I'd found a step up. On one occasion my old team lead had a meeting with my entire team; he'd ask every one of us questions, except me; I was air. I'm pretty sure he wasn't completely conscious that he did this. He once said he didn't like cocaine, because the few times he tried it, he just wanted to beat people. Drugs bring out the best in people.

My old team lead asked a few times if we could have a one-on-one, since I switched teams, as if there was something to evaluate. I should have told him no and explained that I was not going to enter a meeting room with him again. I just let him schedule a meeting and didn't show. He let go pretty easily.

While I don't feel exactly like this now, this is what I felt: I owe this company nothing. They can take their bad behavior and do with it exactly what they want.

I didn't call out the company on Glassdoor. There were only two rotten apples (a hysterical co-worker and a mildly psychopathic team lead), and dozens of good ones.

I find a lot of these ideas where in an exit interview you FINALLY tell them what you are thinking very strange.

For me almost certainly I’ve already addressed what concerns I might have by the time I am exiting.

At one of my last jobs at a big corp I was so surprised that when I quit there was no exit interview. It kinda made sense though, as I noticed there were no real incentives to improve things.

At my last job, I used the interview (with HR, not my manager) to do something I didn't have the power to do before: Call out my bad manager! When HR found out what had transpired, they were horrified. Later on I found out that my manager got into some hot water over the ordeal. Good. Whatever needed to happen to make things easier on the next person. I didn't have anything personal against the manager, but one can only be isolated and put on Ignore for so long.

Being brutally honest about your boss or working environment is akin to burning bridges.

If it's something that no one is likely to take too personally, then sure tell them that you didn't like the quality of the free lunch or that you wanted an air hockey table instead of foosball.

But there's really no upside to slamming your former boss, and there could be a downside if the hiring manager at the company you want to work for reaches out to that former boss personally to ask about you.

Not sure about others by my exit interviews have typically been towards the end of my notice period. I've long since communicated (or at least vented) to my manager what I've been unhappy with as well as having a detailed talk upon giving my notice. And likely as a result, my experiences have been HR just nodding along. I certainly can't imagine treasuring up all the negatives and blurting them all out to HR one one meeting as this post games out.

I've always just been straight with my employers whenever it hasn't worked out and I've decided to move elsewhere. That's not to say that there isn't a need for finesse.

I actually ended up going back to one employer after a year or so, when it turned out that they recognised that my criticisms (primarily focused on unfeasible expectations w.r.t. work-life balance and pressure on teams to deliver) were valid and took major action to flip things around. Whether they recognised the validity of my criticisms because of what I said, or simply because of more people leaving, I cannot say. I don't remember any conspicuous absences of familiar faces when I returned, so I like to think that I was actually heard.

As with any form of diplomacy, there is an art to the delivery. If you're going in with criticism, do so with well-reasoned argument and reference to something provable or better yet numerically presentable, and point out how the criticisms negatively impact them as a business, rather than simply saying that you didn't like [x] or wouldn't have to do [y] at competitor company [A].

And for heaven's sake don't make it personal -- I mean, this isn't something I've done, but it seems pretty basic that getting personal is a no-no.

For example, if you're moving for a better salary, highlight the fact that they're lagging behind in industry sector [P], and as a result you won't be the only one leaving. If they want to retain talent, they must reimburse the talent competitively.

Contrary to the beliefs of some, managers are people, but they don't always think like people -- they're effectively paid to not think like people, but rather to think like a business, to embody the needs of the business.

As a result, human considerations can take a back seat, they can be reluctant to react to change especially where it involves spending money, and they can ignore facts because they haven't been the subject of a pie chart. Explain something the right way, however, and you can affect positive change.**

As others from the UK have said, references are immaterial. I've never had anyone check my references, and I know this because when I got started in software dev 10 years ago, my references were entirely fictional.

** sometimes

I know you see people in this thread saying exit interviews are a trap and others saying they are really productive.

Both are true.

At crappy companies with bad management exit interviews are a trap. At good companies they can be very productive. It is often difficult to tell which kind you are dealing with so staying positive, not attacking specific people, etc is just a way to play it safe. It allows you to give some feedback if you want to but without putting yourself at risk.

What is the consensus on what % of the population has sufficiently low anxiety/neurosis to tolerate well-meaning, constructive feedback ?

And what % of that population makes up startup payrolls?

I want to say with only public info + anecdata, that narcissistic etc types get attracted to startups in general (at least to leadership roles ) which makes the feedback loop particularly tough, as the culture of "criticize at your peril" permeates all the way down.

My exit interview early in my career lead directly to a job later in my career. It was a clean breakup and the HR person and I had nice chat about all sorts of work and non work things.

Years later they were a consultant helping fill positions at a small company. They happily moved my CV to the top because they remembered me and the fun exit interview. Probably added more to the offer too as it was generous.

A guy started at a place I was at, and we realized we worked for some other company five years earlier.

Quick lunch later, seems that the place I was at had not changed one iota from when I was there. Even when a middle manager moved or was replaced, action from on high kept the processes in place.

You're just a cog in the machine, and if the machine is running, there's very, very little that might enact a change.

I generally agree that exit interviews are a trap and I also seek to avoid them unless it is with someone I trust, in which cases, they probably already know what the situation is and why I'm leaving anyway.

I did have one situation in an exit interview (with an HR person who absolutely did not like me and the feeling was completely mutual) where I offered advice not to hire a replacement for my role but to use my salary to hire two new people instead and promote another colleague to my old title. Even though this was the logical and obvious decision to make (my salary was roughly double what an entry-level person would have been paid and the team needed more headcount that it didn't have budget for, as well as a person ready to step up to a more senior title/role), I was still utterly shocked when the company actually listened to me and made the change. Good for them!

But I think a lot of people use an exit interview to vent and get all their bullshit with their old job on the table, and I imagine that can be really cathartic. Like the author of the piece, I'm usually not someone who will do any of that because of professional consequences that can come from that sort of thing, but that is also tied to the sorts of jobs I've had, where the communities around them tend to be fairly insular and where everyone talks to everyone and winds up working with everyone. At the job where they actually took my advice about hiring, I went to a competitor that was in the exact same building. Don't burn bridges when you're probably going to see people in the elevator or on the roof deck.

That is NOT the case for a lot of engineering roles.

If I worked for a contractor or vendor that then farmed me out to various clients (often large enterprise software companies with tens of thousands of employees and vendor roles), I would be a lot less concerned about the repercussions of speaking my mind in the exit interview with the vendor company, because the worst that will probably happen is that that company won't ever want to work with me again, but I can still go to a million other similar companies. Plus, the likelihood that you'll run into the same people again feels small when you are working on something more generalized than in a more focused area.

But even in a best case scenario, where a company actually wants to take your feedback into account, I agree with the author and largely don't see the value (for the employee) in sharing why they left.

> So, the best case scenario is a very unlikely chance of a positive outcome, and even if you get that positive outcome, it’s of no direct value to you.

What if you care about the people who are still at the company, and want them to have a better experience than you did? What if you even care about people you don't even know, who will work there in the future?

Your exit interview almost never affects any change. But, sometimes, the powers that be already wanted to do some change, like firing your incompetent boss, and your exit interview provides a nice piece of documentation for the pile in their PIP (pre-firing incredibly-useless process) of said manager and his/her eventual firing.

I am not afraid of doing an exit interview and putting everything on display, specially if leadership is toxic. It's important for HR to understand problems within the company so that they can be addressed. I have done this with no issues arising from it even though I have referenced that same employer in my resume.

File this along with the advice about resignation letters to state nothing but

"I am writing to give notice of my resignation from <company> on <today's date>. According to the terms of my employment contract my final day will be <leaving date >. -- Sincerely, <name>"

It's kinda weird how this blog is basically https://www.manager-tools.com/2009/04/handling-exit-intervie... with the serial numbers filed off

If you did care enough, I'm sure you could hire a lawyer to draw up a non-retaliation and non-dispargement agreement you could have the company sign, but why bother? You can't be forced into an exit interview in the US. Just accept the meeting invite, don't show up.

This is good advice for people with a lack of social abilities and no tact. However, it is possible to give very frank and difficult feedback but do it in a way that is professional and non-petty. A 30 minute download of every conceivable grievance is not professional.

> Last I checked, the organization was still very much headed in the direction that I disagreed with.

This assumes that your opinion on direction is the right one, and that anyone or team that doesn't agree is wrong?

Just say everything is great and you just want a change

If they cared about what you thought you already had countless 1-1’s, all-hands, anual reviews, etc

Be realistic- they are not going to fix their org based on 30 minutes of my feedback

I could sum his whole post with: don't give information needlessly in professional environments.

If you have nothing to gain, don't give information for free. You never know the dangers of doing the opposite.

Many engineers who are leaving a startup may have a whole bunch of options or equity. This equity has value and one way to preserve that value is to give honest feedback in an exit interview.

> These are all real stories: every single one of those hypotheticals is actually something I’ve seen happen

I'm highly skeptical. I'm going to have to hear more details to buy this story.

Don't know if this is regional (Dane here), but I've never encountered an "exit interview" and couldn't imagine ever accepting an invitation to such a thing.

I kinda liked my exit interview. Got the chance do talk about what have happened and much of a douchebag my former "coworker" was. It was nice to be heard.

Large companies as a matter of policy will refuse to provide references. All they will do is confirm Names and Dates of Employment (not even titles).

You don't need to lie about your work situation. You don't need to tell anyone anything. Just don't go to the meeting.

On exit interviews:

Companies that want me to give them information that would be useful to their business can pay me my consultation rate.

I remember reading about how things said in an exit interview could be used against unemployment claim

I don't know man, some bosses actually do want to learn and improve.

There's this narrative in the tech blogosphere that managers are, by definition, psychopaths who want to screw you over and I'm just not seeing it.

I mean, sure, this can happen but an honest and open exit interview can also just be a nice thing you do for a boss who you're happy to help succeed, even if you're leaving them.

“The pay was too high. I didn’t know what to do with all the money”

How about you stop strategizing and just say what you want to say?

I'm about to quit.

I'm choosing catharsis.

I used my exit interview to rebuke and rain fury upon my managers who were all failures. It felt good.

For a few seconds, I got confused with the domain name, and I wondered why high brow Leftist/Marxist Jacobin Mag would be doing something so mundane as career advice.

Obviously.

PSA: HR is not your friend. Their job is to keep tab on and shield corporations from employee unrest. Think of them as a benign internal police; sort of complement of legal department. Legal is to handle external threat and HR is to handle internal threats.

The author states there is no upside to giving honest feedback of a company in an exit interview, and the one comment I see at the moment which argues perhaps there could be an upside is making the case that the upside is when you personally benefit from stock prices increasing.

Why is it difficult to see that an upside would be that the company makes a positive change and people other than yourself are benefitted? Why is something only beneficial when it happens to me?

The supposed "downside risks" in this article just don't seem realistic to me.

> There are all sorts of ways that your former employers might retaliate. They might decide not to give a reference they would have before the exit interview. They might say bad things about you at industry events. It might be more subtle: they might just carry a negative impression of you in the back of their minds, and when you both end up working together again in the future they’ll hesitate to trust you. Or it might be blatantly unethical or even illegal. They could tell you they’re fine to be a reference, but when someone calls they could say bad things. They could refuse to confirm your employment to a background investigator. They could call your new company and tell them you were fired for fraud.

I just don't see it. Exit interviews are valuable. I find the never-ending cynicism around here exhausting. Sometimes people just want to hear why you're leaving because they want to learn from it.