You have resigned, the handover is going well, and a calendar invitation appears for your last Thursday. Exit conversation, thirty minutes, with someone from the people team. Part of you wants to finally tell them everything. Part of you wants to say it was all lovely and leave.
Neither extreme is the best use of the half hour.
Start with what an exit interview can actually do. It will rarely change anything for you. It can change things for the people staying, if what you say is specific enough to act on. Use that as the test for every point you consider making. Would somebody still here be better off if this were heard?
Talk about systems more than people. The on call rota that had no backup for two years. The promotion process nobody could explain. Three people leaving your team in twelve months without anybody asking why. An organisation can fix these, and they are much harder to dismiss than a complaint about one person.
If a person is part of the reason you are leaving, be careful and factual. Describe what happened, not what kind of person they are. And if it was serious, harassment or anything unsafe, do not save it for the exit interview at all. It belongs in a proper report, ideally before your last week, while you still have the standing of an employee.
Give the good parts too, and be just as precise. What kept you as long as it did? Which manager or habit should be protected? Organisations are often worse at knowing what works than what does not, and good things get lost by accident all the time.
Remember that this is still a professional conversation. Say nothing you would mind having repeated to the person concerned, because sometimes it will be. The industry is smaller than it looks, and people remember.
If you are not comfortable being candid in the room, you may keep it short or decline. That is allowed. You can also send a brief written note afterwards, which gives you time to choose your words.
One honest, specific half hour on your way out can be the most useful feedback that company receives all year. Treat it as your last piece of work, and do it properly.
– Asael Shinder
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