The Exit Interview Has Value If Truth Be Told, Or Does It?

Cartoon Source: The New Yorker magazine

How reliable are exit interviews in getting at the real reason(s) why an employee has decided to leave their job and employer? Do exit interviews have any real value for the employer?

Is it incumbent on an employer to even conduct an “exit interview”? “If an employee wants to leave,” one HR manager once shared with me, “…they should not let the door hit them in the ass on the way out. Who needs ‘em?”

Some employers value valuable employees and use formal questionnaires in attempt to understand the reason(s) why an employee would want to leave their job and company. Some conduct an informal face-to-face meeting in an effort to try to discern if there is a problem they should be aware of for the record. And some pose such questions as to why, but well after an employee has left.

As recruiters we hear all the reasons why candidates parted ways with previous employers and why they want to leave their current employer, if they’re currently employed. Given that information, plus or minus the exaggerations, it is clear a lot of reasons are not being shared in the exit interview.

Retention of respected employees is a critical concern for any employer. While it’s often too late to dissuade a valuable employee from leaving once they have given notice-- the exit interview could prove instructive if truth be told.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Poreda on December 12, 2011 at 12:33pm

Although exit interviews are well intended, they have little if any true value. A smart former employee will be nice, polite and cordial and say only nice things and it was simply time to move on. The reason: no benefit in giving real (if they are universally determined to be negative) responses. You never know when you'll meet again.

Christopher Poreda

ultimatejobboard.com

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Permalink Reply by Valentino Martinez on December 12, 2011 at 1:45pm

@Christopher,

I agree. Not burning bridges for the employee who is quitting a job is sound logic--so venting will be held in check. However, how does the employer get at a possible problem in-house based on a valued employee leaving? Certainly a large percentage of resignations are personal and unrelated to the employer, but I recall a number of past surveys that listed one of the primary reasons why employees quit is related to managers and/or management practices.

The exit interview is a last chance option to broach the subject.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Poreda on December 12, 2011 at 2:09pm

Good point Valentino but in the end...I think the employer knows how the shop is run, their shortfalls and I would even subscribe that if an ex-employee was completely honest in an exit interview, what was said would come as no surprise. So to the ex employee, why say anything negative...? I don't see the upside.

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Permalink Reply by Valentino Martinez on December 12, 2011 at 2:48pm

I disagree about management ignoring some input as "no surprise". And I wouldn't necessarily consider all feedback as negative if it was information of the "need to know" nature that tends to be glaringly under the radar of employers who think they know "how the shop is run". Anderson Consulting would have loved such info relative to the ENRON debacle.

Christopher Poreda said:

Good point Valentino but in the end...I think the employer knows how the shop is run, their shortfalls and I would even subscribe that if an ex-employee was completely honest in an exit interview, what was said would come as no surprise. So to the ex employee, why say anything negative...? I don't see the upside.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Poreda on December 12, 2011 at 4:51pm

Ahhhh...but what you may be missing Valentino is perspective. I can tell you a shop is run horribly (before recruiting and job board I was an international business consultant) and you can tell me it's great. Everything is in the eye of the beholder. With that being a constant, it's a value proposition. When I was recruiting I would tell my exiting candidates to be vanilla in their exit interviews. What is the value to the ex-employee to "tell it like it is"? If there isn't any, and I don't believe there is, smile and move on; you may see your ex-employer in the future. The ex-employee has to think about themselves and their family. Giving their "opinion", and that's all it is, is inconsequential to the move.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 12, 2011 at 5:31pm

If you don't think the AA partners and upper managemnt knew what was going on with Enron i have a bridge for you. That's why some of them got indicted and the whole firm collapsed along with Enron. Not only did they know, they signed off on audit reports and helped structure some of the deals.