Top 10 Exit Interview Questions To Ask [Actionable Guide]

Top 10 exist interview questions to ask - Recruiteze featured image

Exit interview questions are something that many companies tend to overlook and forget to go over once their employee decides to leave. However, in this article, we will focus on explaining why this is a must and which questions you should ask.

Here’s what we will go over and the questions we will cover:

  1. Why you should ask exit interview questions?
  2. Why are you leaving?
  3. How long have you been looking for a job?
  4. Did you have everything you needed to do your job?
  5. Did you and your manager care about each other’s opinions?
  6. What is the major reason for leaving?
  7. If you would go out for a drink with the director of our company, what friendly advice would you give him regarding employee companies?
  8. Have the additional education materials and opportunities we have provided you had a positive impact on your professional development?
  9. Do you have any tips on improving working conditions and the atmosphere of the workplace in our company?
  10. Would you come back?
  11. How can Recruiteze help you with providing the additional value which will reduce the number of leaving employees?

Why Should You Ask Exit Interview Questions?

Why Should You Ask Exit Interview Questions?

When recruiters and HR professionals think about the most effective processes that increase the efficiency of managing an employee’s life cycle, their focus is on hiring interviews and building trustful professional relationships with their leads or current employees.

The popularity and the enormous number of job interview-related content, including
Interview Checklist,’ ‘20 Performance Review Questions’, ‘Interview Questions to Ask,’ ‘Ask an Expert: I Freeze Up During Job Interviews,’ confirm this permission.

These are essential parts of the recruiter’s and HR expert’s job responsibilities, and you can read more about them here, but most of us forget about one crucial piece of the puzzlethe exit interviews.

Using the right exit interview questions and techniques will differentiate you from other HR professionals and recruiters. In essence, it will allow you to valuable insights into the company’s strengths and weaknesses, but only if you take this into account:

  • Don’t look at these interviews just as part of the formalities and process within a job cancellation.
  • Take each answer with caution because most of the exit interview answers from your ex-employees are not entirely true.
  • Adapt the approach and question form to the person’s character and use that data for the following questions.
  • Avoid the typical formal questions that every recruiter asks to give your former employees a sense of distrust, meaninglessness, and a waste of time.
  • Make them know you are not just doing it because you have to emphasize that the feedback they provide you with will not be wasted but improve the company’s human relations culture.

The most asked exit interview question – Why are you leaving?

The most asked exit interview question - Why are you leaving?

Everyone can find this question on every blog that talks about exit interviews, and most of them describe it as ‘the best exit interview question to ask,’ but just because everyone asks it doesn’t mean it’s the best solution.

Here are some pros and cons of this question and other ways you can ask that question and avoid a negative outcome.

PROSCONS
Potential knowledge of the resign.Someone could easily misinterpret it.
The employee expects this question.Pre-prepared answer that won’t be completely honest.
The majority agrees to answer.It’s the most typical exit interview question with which employees rarely have pleasant experiences.
Open-ended question.An interviewer could lose control over the conversation.

Recruiters and HR professionals can avoid the pros of this question by simply reformulating it – instead of asking ‘why are you leaving,’ ask them what led you to accept or think about a new job position.

It is crucial to understand that other typical exit interview questions cause the same cons that will give employees a sense of neglect and disregard for their feedback answers and won’t change anything.

If you want to know the ‘golden’ exit interview questions that will provide more honest feedback, keep scrolling.

Also, If you want to maximize the value and progress you’ll get by applying these tips, you must not allow your commitment to each employee to suffer because new leads overload.

But, again, we have a solution for you.

Recruiteze offers you advanced recruiting tools that will drastically change your job, reducing all tedious, lengthy processes and save your time and energy.

What would you miss about this company?
What would you miss about this company?

This question is an excellent opportunity to use the data collected from your ex-employees’ answers and present the company’s values and strengths in communication with your leads and first job interviews.

It gives an insight into what is going on with your company and all the positive thoughts caused by actual experiences.

A similar one is:

‘What did you enjoy most about working here?’

You can also test out being more specific with this variant:

‘What skills have you gained from your work experience here?’

What benefits can you get by asking these questions?

  1. You will receive insights and positive feedback on the practices and activities that best affected your employees, and you will enrich their application.
  2. You will learn which specific skills that your company provides are most valuable to employees.
  3. Use positive experiences and feedback from this type of exit interview answers to increase the number of new leads and provide extra value for people interested in working in your company.
  4. This type of question allows you to get insights into what specific hr activities increase the positive emotional connection between the employee and the company.

Now, we’ll provide you with information that is useful when you get negative comments like:

Why didn’t you react and ask for a conversation like this before I announced my job cancellation?’

The nature and quality of this answer is another step that differentiates you from the average non-professional HR professionals and recruiters.

Five things to do when an employee has a very unpleasant work experience:

  1. Thank the employee for the comment and feedback.
  2. Show appreciation for the insights they gave you.
  3. Make them know that you will use that feedback to improve the company’s recruitment process and work atmosphere.
  4. Listen carefully to whether a former employee has ever complained to the HR department or their manager.
  5. Make the employee feel comfortable and safe while sharing unpleasant experiences with you/

Don’t forget that this is also a very stressful period for them, when they may be hesitant, there are many articles like ‘Top Tips For Deciding Whether It’s Really Time To Quit Your Job,’ ‘Should I Quit My Job?’ that talk about this, so be professional but with understanding.

How long have you been looking for a job?

How long have you been looking for a job?

Besides additional insights into the market and competitors, you will understand how long things have been off the track.

It is important to analyze the answers that you receive from your employees because there is a possibility you’ll get an insight into whether the reason for the resignation was the same for several people.

Also, it is crucial to prevent oversights with your current and new employees based on the ex-employer’s feedback. In that way, you will improve your goals and results by using the automated recruitment process.

When it comes to this question, remember these four things:

  1. Try to connect the time of dissatisfaction or desire for change with another former employee.
  2. Check if your employee tried to solve it during that time of period.
  3. The reason the employee didn’t contact the HR department.
  4. Were you the reason for the resign thoughts or other colleagues.

Did you have everything you needed to do your job?

Did you have everything you needed to do your job?

Ensure that the employee during the period he worked for the company had everything he needed for a pleasant job, including educational materials, tools, equipment, and things related to their personal preferences that affected the work environment.

Try to find out which of these things employee liked the most but in addition pay attention to:

  • Did you meet the requirements for new educational and work materials as equally the requirements related to the work environment?
  • In what period the HR department and other company employees met their request for additional equipment.
  • Whether you had enough space and suitable conditions for pleasant work.

Did you and your manager care about each other’s opinions?

Did you and your manager care about each other's opinions?

Make sure your former employees feel respected, that communication was two-way because it is essential in the business world.

Also, you can get an insight into whether the manager gave space to employees to suggest their own ideas, progress through additional projects, and whether the employee had equal respect and pleasant communication with the manager.

Pay attention to these aspects as well:

  • Did the employee have regular meetings with the manager and team?
  • Was he informed about deadlines and meetings on time and during professional working hours?
  • Had the employee impression that everyone could freely express their opinions and ideas?
  • Did the employee felt encouraged and fully motivated to advocate their own idea?
  • Whether the manager considered the position of each individual within the team, as well as functioning and techniques for improving working as a productive team.

What is the major reason for leaving?

What is the major reason for leaving?

This question is associated with comparing a new job with an existing one. It could provide us with the necessary knowledge about our competitors such as:

  • Followed pay structure in the market.
  • Industry insights.
  • How do our benefits stick up?
  • How to make progress.

If you would go out for a drink with the director of our company, what friendly advice would you give him regarding employee companies?

This belongs to the group of funny exit interview questions. It would be most advisable to ask this question to employees with positive or objective opinions.

ProsCons
Adds a friendly note in the communication.Not adjusting the question to the character of the person could worsen the course of the interview.
It reduces tension and makes the employee feel important.Sometimes the question can be taken too seriously.
It is unpredictable, so that we can expect honest answers and valuable advice.Sometimes an employee does not look at this situation professionally, so it happens that the interviewer quickly loses control over the conversation.

Have the additional education materials and opportunities we have provided you had a positive impact on your professional development?

This question will give us insights into how much the entire company’s support means to the employees, especially the HR department and recruiters.

If the answer is, focus on finding the reason (whether it is inadequate material, insufficient support from other colleagues, inability to advance due to the leadership mentors…).

Use the data collected from this exit interview answer and improve the weaknesses identified during the interview by taking a more advanced approach with new and current employees.

Do you have any tips on improving working conditions and the atmosphere of the workplace in our company?

This question is very pleasant with a friendly tone, and therefore, the answers are more honest. Let your interlocutor know that their advice will be greatly appreciated and that we will try to apply most of it.

Sometimes the communication will develop in the context of employee dissatisfaction, so don’t be surprised if you hear answers like ‘why should I talk if I know no one will analyze this.’

Remember what we emphasized at the beginning of this blog. You need to instill confidence and assure the employee that their feedback will advance HR and recruitment activities and processes.

Would you come back?

Would you come back?

We came to the final question, and that is whether you would work in the company again.

This answer will reveal a lot of information like:

  1. Whether some answers were strategically connected to the uncertain nature of future job offer.
  2. Whether the answers were created based on the strong emotional feelings (negative or positive) whether.
  3. Whether employees were objective.
  4. How much they enjoyed working in our companies.

In the case of positive but also negative exit question interview answers, try to find out why the answer is yes/no, and in what time period and under what certain conditions would they do that.

Finally, give them additional value.

Point out that your recruitment process has progressed and is automated.

Prove that with one change in strategy, the working environment, but also the working atmosphere, will drastically improve due to a more relaxed schedule of recruiters and HR professionals who will have more time for dedication to each employee.

Related articles:

  1. Executive hiring interview questions
  2. What are the pros and cons of group interviews
  3. Competency-based interview questions
  4. Exit interview questions
  5. Unique interview questions
  6. Best recruiter interview questions
  7. Help candidates prepare for an interview
  8. Interview questions for program managers
  9. Rules to follow during phone and video interviews

How can Recruiteze help you with providing the additional value which will reduce the number of leaving employees?

Recruiteze - A new, smarter way to hire

 

It’s simple; this is the secret:

  1. Create customizable exit interview questions based on data collected from ex-employees answers using Recruiteze
  2. Recruiteze software is 24h available wherever you can connect to the internet. So if you need last-minute exit interview data just before you start the interview with new job candidates, you don’t have to worry about anything.
  3. Managing with all those potential, current, and ex-employees can be so confusing and almost impossible, but with our CRM software, you can keep notes and communication all in one place.
  4. Let’s say you have groups of exit interview questions you want to test, or you’ve already tested them with a Recruiteze’s free trial, but now you want to link them to groups of employees who’ll have an exit interview. Sounds impossible, right? But the recruiter is still there for you. Our advanced tools and software sophistication will solve any problem of this kind.

You can start your 30-day free trial, with absolutely no obligation required. Also, guess what?

Click here, and you can get 15% on our annual and monthly packages, including starter, startup, pro-business, enterprise, and even costume ones.

Recruit smarter, not harder with Recruiteze!

Try Recruiteze Free Today!