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Being Honest In Exit Interviews Is Pointless
Esther Schindler writes "Say that you're leaving a job, either on your own volition or because they decided it was time for you to 'pursue other opportunities.' Before you leave, the HR department wants to chat with you about the employment experience, in an exit interview. 'Oh goodie,' you think. 'Now I can really tell them what I really feel.'
Don't do it. If your employer couldn't find the time to ask you what was good or bad about working at the company while you were still working there, writes Lisa Vaas, why bother with honesty and potentially burned bridges now? (If they did ask, give them constructive feedback before you leave this job; they deserve it). Discuss."
Easier headline: exit interviews are pointless.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Let be honest, you must lie at EVERY interview. Exit, Enter, Middle, Top, Bottom, Pointless, etc interview. You may NOT tell the truth. You MUST lie like...like politician. At the end of the day, all the HR do believe that you LIE. So why disappoint them?
Suck it.
How do I tell my HR drone that the boss is a greedy Jew rat that's too busy counting shekels to notice that he's a curse upon the earth?
Redundant. They know he's a greedy number cruncher, that's why he was promoted.
Happened to me when they ran out of people to do the work.
If it is someone that can actually make changes be honest. If its an HR person forget it.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Say nothing but good things -
Tell the boss how good they are even tho they are the worst type of asshole in the universe
Thanks the co-workers for their generous help and guidance even tho they are clumsy back-stabbers
Give great praises the company even tho they are giving you the pink slip
That will make them happy, and happy people (often) do not find time to do more harm to you, leaving you plenty of peaceful time to look for new jobs
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Why would you? Exit interviews are for the employer's benefit, not yours. Any changes they make will be after you're long gone. All you're doing is providing free consulting. Unless you think saying positive things about a boss will get back to them, don't waste your time.
I have to disagree. Being honest can serve two purposes: a) it can be extremely satisfying, if you have had a very bad time of things and they are coming to an end, and b) it can highlight bad managers or other employees that have caused you so much grief and they might be reined in so that they don't continue to make life hell for others.
I had an appallingly bad manager some time ago who made my life hell with his ultra-micromanagment and his constant snooping. He finally drove me to leave and there was a bit of a showdown - I wouldn't exactly call it an exit interview but his boss was there. I told him exactly what I thought of him and why he was such a bad manager. I think he was actually surprised that his 'style' caused so much friction. Interestingly (though too late) several people came forward afterwards and told me they had had the same experiences with the same guy, and had asked for transfers to get away from him. My response of leaving was more extreme, but driven by the same problems. I heard a few weeks later he did get moved (not fired, unfortunately) and given a role that did not involve direct people-management. So these things can have a positive result for those you leave behind.
Baby, it's not me, it's you. If you'd have treated me better, I'd stay but this has been going on for too long.
Look, I've already begun seeing someone else and I don't want to cheat on you. Let's still be friends. Really, there's someone out there in this big world who is just right for you but that's not me. I really want you to be happy but I want to be happy too. I gotta go. I'll pick up my things later.
Then set in the west.
There's nothing for anyone to gain, no follow-up, no repercussions, etc.
Move on.
People voted for it.
Advice is not free.
I had a worthless boss at a job I left, I requested an exit interview with the head of HR. They didn't normally do exit interviews, but I had been there for 6 years, so they wanted to know why I was leaving. Took a few months after I left to find time for a meeting, but I laid it all out. How I felt, why I left... 2 months later I got a call to come back. They fired my old boss after I opened their eyes to the BS he was pulling. I went back.. with a nice raise and a $4k signing "bonus". It works in certain cases. YMMV.
-Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat-
I worked for the biggest jerk in the world, and when I quit, I told H/R the things he had done to me, and urged them to not just take my word but to ask around.
Later that week, they fired him and escorted him out (not typical there).
The next day, my former coworkers had a going-away party for him, but they didn't invite him (and they did invite me).
Just because you weren't treated the with respect doesn't mean you can't be a better person and treat them professionally along with respect. Why be an asshole just because you can? Life has an uncanny habit of "What goes around, comes around." Plus you can use this as an opportunity to practice your diplomacy skills.
That's the problem with the world -- people just don't care. Maybe if enough people set a proper example there would be less apathy.
I think my "Bite My Hairy Ass" speech is both informative and entertaining.
When my contract for Hewlett Packard was terminated a couple of years ago, I never got an exit interview - and why should I have? I was just a lowly contractor (who HP considered hiring directly, but my contract forbid it). Had they interviewed me, I would've had positive things to say, some suggestions, all very constructive as that's my style when it comes to communication in working environment. Instead what I got was various incompetent people talking shite about my work behind my back after I had already left. And I would never have heard of it, had I not met an ex-colleague in a bar who told me years later just how bad it was... and this was not the only thing HP screwed up when terminating my contract.
My opinion: make sure you get your exit interview, you can affect just how badly your career can be sabotaged without you necessarily ever knowing why you're not getting that job you applied for.
PS. Only after writing this I noticed this article is hosted by, who else than, HP. Oh the irony.
Both my community college and my current university ask for class evaluations. The community college asks for campus administrative feedback every semester. Maybe you need to go to a better college?
Great Intellect...
I gave a good honest exit interview when i left my first fulltime software job.. Wasnt a asshole, and kept it professional, mixed in what i didnt like and what i thought they did real well. The company has hired me back 3 times. Did the same thing at all 4 exit interviews, and maybe if i ever need a job again (with this market one never knows) i will get hired back, and that is worth a lot to me personally. But theres been a couple other places i burned the bridge down from shore to shore, not even a splinter left. Assholes had it coming....and i delivered.
-KI
#include bier;
Sometimes the best exit interview involves gasoline and a plane ticket to the Bahamas. All work and no play makes Milton a dull boy.
If you're leaving otherwise secure employment for greener pastures, is it really worth your time to do an exit interview? If your leaving for money, realize that your time is now worth what you're getting paid at the new place!
I say Politely Decline!
Or if they insist, schedule one for the last day you are there, and don't show up.
Here's why,
1. It's too easy to say stuff you might regret. Your leaving, your shoulders are light, and your tongue is heavy. You never know who is friends w/ that HR guy.
2. Even if you are rational enough to point out exactly what was wrong w/ this company w/o belittling anyone, How can you articulate that in a way that won't burn a bridge or how will HR interpret that?
3. You can't resist telling them off? Write a letter to HR, and whomever else you think might need to know. It'll be quicker than an interview, and you can sit on it before sending it. You will probably have someone actually read it.
4. Plan to leave like you're coming back next year. The grass isn't always greener (trust me, I made a lateral move for a higher end potential only to take a per hour pay cut north of 30%, My former boss only has to slightly hint that one day they'll need additional staff before I tell them I'm ready to come back. In my personal hypothetical future case, it won't be my boss, I'm actually quite fond of their leadership, it'll be the guy 2 levels up, who publicly mocked how we had to work all this OT, but not 1 breath later mentioned he's getting a fat bonus check for meeting our deadlines.
(This really happened in front of > 75 people.)
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Be professional. Offer positive recommendations. Don't crap in the pool cause no matter how large the city, everybody knows everybody.
The article seems to assume being honest also means being a dick. It doesn't. It's possible to give honest and constructive opinions during the exit interview without burning bridges. Being dishonest isn't going to help them improve and it won't give you any satisfaction. Be honest, but be constructive and specific, sometimes it really does help. (Often it doesn't, but you won't know unless you try.)
I just left my employer of nearly six years and, at my exit interview, said that everything was peaches and cream, lying through my teeth the whole time. I figured, yeah, I could vent like hell, but a) it wouldn't do any good - as a huge company, they're not going to change based on my opinion; and b) I might need to go back, someday. I'd rather gargle with a mixture of glass, shards of razor blades, and lye, but never say never. So I was "nice" and said all the "right things," even though I hate lying.
Don't post a story to /. and end it with "Discuss". That is condescending and pointless, and removes much of my desire to actually participate in the discussion.
It makes it sound like a writing prompt in a Freshmen writing class.
1. Complement them on their company and its direction
2. Tell them they shouldn't have to wait for the exit interview to communicate effectively with their employees.
3. "Thanks! Bye!"
Exit interviews are about statistics, not about gathering opinionated solutions. If they seem to act on your advice after you've left, it'll be due to the stats, not your once off rant.
Task Mangler
I have worked with a lot of HR types over the years and the vast majority of them are worthless steaming piles. Harassment legislation here in the US gives them an overinflated sense of worth and power. Anyone that has been around for a while knows how to game the system when it comes to interviews with HR types. You just throw around a few buzz words, enough to baffle their feeble pea-sized brains, and it's off to round two. Once you are an employee you can expect nothing useful from them. You'll get the annual benefits signup, which is most likely self service anyway. If you dare ask any questions it will surely be met with a condescending sneer. You'll get a notification that it's time to take the BS harassment seminar that everyone sleeps through. At the end of it all you'll get the exit interview. Now if I thought it would do any good to tell them what I really thought of their company I might open up. But the exit interview only occurs under one of two circumstances - I got pissed off and quit or they fired/laid me off. In neither case am I going to be in a great mood. If I quit it's because the company is messed up. What good is it going to do to tell them it's messed up? I'll just end up looking like a malcontent. If I get laid off I might end up saying something that I'll regret later so better to just bite your tongue and move on. Here's the dirty little secret - the HR drones don't give a shit what you think either way. They'll just laugh about it in the lunch room later that day. Here's the other dirty little secret - even if you did tell the HR drone how to improve their company nobody on the business side will listen to them. They are the hall monitors of the business world. Remember that kid in high school that got stuffed into a gym locker? He's working in HR now.
I left a bloated University bureaucracy and there was nothing I could do or say that would have made one iota of difference in the political warfare that was the IT Depts. I could have ranted on about the mismanagement and waste and it would have been good chuckle-fodder for the Division head as he went to his next meeting with the president to spend another million on the buzz word gotta have of the day. I took the high road said almost nothing in my exit.
Now.. if you are in an organization that gives a crap..thats a different story and they might use the exit as a tool but imho, any company over a thousand or so..its just a waste of time and paper to push.
The article also says they sometimes fire bad managers over exit interviews. And let's be honest, that's the effect you want from exit interviews, right?
In any case, be a politician. Don't be TOO honest. But if your boss was a total dick and you know he's not going to help you in the future anyway, go ahead and tell on him.
Of course, some companies don't listen, but you can laugh at them when they go out of business so much more satisfyingly if you done told 'em.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
I knew it! You're Sasquatch!
Realistically, feedback is feedback. When you take away the way it was delivered, you're left with the simple message. No matter when your former company asked you for the feedback, they still asked the question. Besides, giving feedback with tact can still be as pleasurable and it may show of qualities in you that you may have not previously demonstrated, which could ultimately leave the door open for reemployment...if you had to. You could also help out now former coworkers improve their current situation.
/. post! =d
The important part of all of this, and where some people go wrong, is the way the feedback was delivered. Often when people are in these kinds of situations, especially if you're on the getting canned side of things, their emotions are running high. This will sometimes mean that you're running in more of a 'primal' mode rather than thinking about your message. As a result, it can look like a impassioned rant or a blubbering pile of incoherent blabbering (on the extremes). If providing feedback, it's important to place this kind of feedback in an actionable, realistic way. Keep emotion out of the situation.
When responding, try to answer in capsules of information presented in a very factual, respectful manner and including details along the way. For example, "I find that the relationship I had with Peggy Sue was great in many ways. She always greeted me. Though, there were some challenges that ultimately resulted in my decision to terminate our employment relationship. I found that her style was a little too hands on and I felt like she didn't trust me to run with a project to the finish line. For example, recently we were working on using genetic cloning to make a white horse that also grew a unicorn horn. I almost had the base sequences aligned and only needed a few more days to make it perfect. Peggy Sue surprised me with a check up regarding this project and was in the impression that I had finished my plot and decided that she would now take over the project and assigned me to start figuring out how to make pigs fly. This is one example of this type of behavior, I can provide more if needed."
Another critical part of delivering the how is making sure your tone of voice remains neutral, even slightly positive and forward thinking. Since this is text based, I'll try to explain my meaning... Think about a time when you've gone out for dinner and the server you've had is simply amazing. The kind of experience you walk away from saying 'yeah, they were good!' What did their tone of voice sound like? I'm not really saying you have to sound like a sultry temptress (damn you, hooters girls!) or that really flaming gay dude at the gap....but they were into their job and had passion in their voice enough to say that they really cared about the situation, but not enough to get creepy about it.
PS: Huzzah for first registered
Saying negative things about people is rarely in your interest.
I don't normally reply to anon or trolls, but what the devil are you smoking? What a total misuse of "THE exception that proves the rule" you blithering monobrowed goatbanger. This instance the exception BREAKS the rule, making it not a rule. Dear lord.
Here, read up on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
I was painfully honest. They had real issues. I had previously on several occasions told my boss what they were. Nothing changed. I asked for a layoff and was told the company would never lay someone who was skilled off. So I quit for unemployment. Told them so. Won't change anything I'm sure, but my conscience is clear.
andy
...and then be blandly pleasant. Otherwise, just don't do it. What are they going to do, fire you?
I'm always amused at the naive goodwill that people extend to their employers. Most of us live in at-will states, without unions, and without any real workers' rights that can be exercised without spending more than they're worth retaining counsel. These are the people who can fire you at any time for any reason, but they want two weeks' warning if you leave on your own. Why give them extra freebies?
Look, forget the employer-employee bullshit. You are a vendor, selling a service. Your employer is a customer. As long as they're buying what you're selling at the best price you can get (which includes work conditions and perceived job security as well as pay and benefits), the customer is always right. As soon as they stop buying, or you find someone willing to pay more, then go attend to your new customer. The old customer wants to take more of your time for free? Politely decline. You're running a business -- you -- and the only point in giving something away free is if it leads to another sale.
Don't bother with work ethic or pride in your job at this point. Those are good concepts and they have their place, but that place is well before anyone starts talking about exit interviews. If you're leaving voluntarily, they treated you well, and you feel like extending the courtesy, sure. But even then, don't say anything that can be used against you later. It's just business, and that's how they see it. Go and do likewise.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
My university had an "Exit Seminar" for seniors. Once a week we had someone come in, tell us all about their job, and then we wrote essentially a book report on that plus one other topic set by the prof.
One of the essays was on the worst class we ever took. I chose the exit seminar, on the grounds that the class could have been redesigned as a freshman technical writing course and given everyone in the major a lot of help. Aside from the writing skills, every week, we got to listen to awesome people doing awesome things, but since we hadn't taken classes X, Y, and Z, most of the people in the class probably never get to be as awesome as that guy.
The professor sent me an email telling me I had 24 hours to rewrite the essay or fail.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They can tell all their buddies that you're a sore thumb that won't stay nailed down.
If you really might be interested in ever working at the place again, someday, then sure -- make sure your exit interview reflects the positives you saw in the company. If not though? I really don't believe most places would bother doing exit interviews at all if they never paid any attention to what was said in them. (Yeah, I know some of you insist these are only to make some busy work for the H.R. department. But at least in the small to medium-size companies I've worked for, H.R. was quite busy just navigating all the red tape involved in the company's health insurance program, plus any 401K or other benefits programs, not to mention all the "little stuff" they were asked to do each day, like adding up hours on people's time-cards and recording the data in Excel spreadsheets used by managers, or handing out paychecks each week, or keeping up with people's vacation requests. I don't think they needed more "busy work"!)
I doubt it will do anything but potentially burn a bridge if you "vent", ranting and raving about how horrible the place was. They're more likely to remember you as that "bitter guy who we're all glad left this place" than anything else.
BUT, I do think if you're honest, but diplomatic and professional in your exit interview, you could definitely still single out problem managers or bad policies, explaining why they posed problems for you (while still talking about anything good you noted while working there). I know such comments DO get kept on file and help build a case against certain employees over time.
For example, I once knew a guy who was considered a "lifer" at the company he was in. It was clear HE intended to stay until the day he retired, and he seemed to have enough respect with the owners so they regarded him as an asset worth keeping. In reality, he constantly requested assistants or interns to help him with his job and in case after case, those people were fired by him or voluntarily quit, because they couldn't stand him any longer. Even managers in one of the other buildings would talk about him behind his back regularly, asking how it was possible he needed extra help to do his job, yet a simple request they asked him to do would take days or weeks to accomplish. By doing it themselves, it got done far more quickly.
I know for a fact he was blasted repeatedly in exit interviews - and all of those people probably decided their comments had no effect, since he still had a job after they were gone. But guess what? When the economy slowed down, he was one of the first people they decided they'd have to do without due to budget cuts. (And while they'd never admit it officially? Off the record, H.R. expressed a lot of unhappiness with the guy's attitude and failure to "straighten up" after warning him.)
Change can be maddeningly slow in companies, especially when they're afraid of lawsuits and/or it's a matter of convincing a whole group of managers to get on the same page about what starts out as someone's opinion. But in the long haul, yes, I think those negative exit interview comments have a cumulative effect.
This message brought to you by the Richard M. Nixon Center for Career Planning.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The only benefit to you in an exit interview is data you can glean from them, and any satisfaction from acting out will burn you in the long run. So get outside yourself and attempt to join forces with the person interviewing you so you both can avoid having to do this in the future. You'll have time for complaining about the bad times when you're with your buddies at the bar.
The ideal exit interview gets to the heart of the problem without pointing fingers. It is impartial, it gets information as often as it gets, and it helps you grow as a person:
It's not "my boss was the worst asshole in the world," it's "I couldn't find a way to improve my work relationship with my manager. Maybe it was a personality clash, but I had taken these steps [insert steps], and felt that my attempts were rebuffed. Can you think of ways I might have done better?"
It's not "you guys are so great I'm so sad and you'll do great," it's "I know we didn't really get along, please be honest, what do you think most damaged our work relationship? [hear answer] Oh, good points, I thought it was also this [insert problems]"
And if you're being polite and constructive and they're they opposite, then ask to cut it short and move on with your life.
I think you must have miss-read the subject. Everyone knows that people who can fuck themselves never leave the house, much less hang around a workplace waiting for exiting employees to storm out of the building,
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
To boil it down, does it ever make sense to say fuck you to somebody you will never see again? Some may even draw satisfaction from that response. Sometimes, a respectful farewell is the biggest fuck you of all.
Employees given exit interviews are slightly less likely to sue. The firing side could care less about your input, it's a last gasp opportunity to manage you.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'll non-anonymously second that motion as well.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
A single answer to this question misses the context. You have to judge the situation to determine what kind of an exit interview to have. Is the organization open to feedback? If you have worked any length of time in an org, you should have a pretty good idea of whether honest feedback would be useful or not. Using the exit interview for venting maybe cathartic in the short term but not very useful for the long term.
"Shoot straight you bastards! Don't make a mess of it."
Have gnu, will travel.
If a business can't handle honesty, they are probably not running very well. Let them have it.
Nothing to see.
If they're still paying you, and they ask you to go to the exit interview, then your responsibility is to go to the exit interview. If they've stopped paying you, you can do whatever you feel like. So I guess it depends on if the exit interview is "on the clock" or not.
As for what to say... Lots of variables there... but I know where I stand if I ever leave my current employer.
If I leave, it is likely I will be switching fields completely, and that I already have a job at a new employer, as such, it is unlikely that it will matter much if I burn any bridges. I'm not however a jerk, so I still don't intentionally burn bridges. I would take the opportunity to give constructive feedback on problems in the company. I would not be talking about specific people (because that's not really the problem where I work) but more about overall issues, and that priorities may not be in the right places. I would be nice about it, and honestly, I doubt anything it would change within the company, but at least I did my bit. The company can either like it, or not, but as I'd already be leaving, there wouldn't be anything they can do about it if they don't like it. And I would feel better knowing I did things honestly.
01. Keep a diary of your managers and co-workers actions in all their asserholery. Secretly tape meetings and keep copies of all emails. Also email back a confirmation of any mutually contradictory directive any one of your line manager(s) may give you. ...
02. Say nothing but good things -
03. Tell the boss how good they are even tho they are the worst type of asshole in the universe
04. Thanks the co-workers for their generous help and guidance even tho they are clumsy back-stabbers
05. Give great praises the company even tho they are giving you the pink slip
06. That will make them happy, and happy people (often) do not find time to do more harm to you, leaving you plenty of peaceful time to look for new jobs
07. When you've found a new job post evidence derived from 01 to their competitors and online
You forgot 08. Complain loudly that everyone ELSE is a dirty backstabber, that secretly tape meetings and keep copies of all YOUR emails.
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
A extremely wise manager once told me, people do not quit their jobs, they fire their bad managers.
Got Code?
I've never told anyone how I've felt about working with them: "be careful of the toes you step on today, as they may be connected to the arse you have to kiss tomorrow"
Is an assmaster some sort of exercise device?
Not unlike your ex calling you to discuss the "reason" for the break up yeah? Nothing good comes out of whatever reason there were, ever. Why? Because every single relationship is complex and different, much like jobs. The lessons you learned in the last one can mean diddly in the next, well, some are valuable and might help with the next.. ..Until you break up again. Now explain that.
I only say good things when I go as that's the least you can do.
Bet this is not noticed or upvoted or however it works here, but I will post anyways. I mainly read the articles and many of the comments and appreciate this site. I rarely comment on items, as others have already said it better than I. It is the 2nd site I go to everyday.
But maybe this may be interesting:
Before I was in Tech. I worked in Insurance as a Field Adjuster working on Commercial Claims, Public Body Claims and just about anything that could create a Claim. I worked for the 2nd largest Company in the World at the time. They went through a major merger in the early 80's. They brought in an outside Claims Manager for our 150 - 200 person Office. Said Office handled Underwriting, Loss Control, Claims and support services.
The Manager took it upon himself to harass those in the Claims Department as a soon as he arrived. I had already had been in the business for 7 years and knew what I was doing. He started with the Adjusters first of which I was one of 12. He made life hell for 6 of us and then came to me.
I did not take any of his shit. And dished it back and then some. We had some heated one way discussions, where I took the lead pointing out where he was a prick and wrong. My language was that of a raging sailor and I was not shy as to whether others heard me. When he took me on, I had already started to network and was actively looking for a job. To give myself time, I filed a Stress Claim with the backing of my Doctor and took 2 weeks of paid time off. Claim was accepted by Workman's Comp. Very soon I secured a job at a different company with no difficulty that gave me more benefits and a 15% increase in wages. My responsibilities actually were decreased in the new position.
I got the new job on a Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, I gave notice that I was taking my 2 weeks vacation, starting on Friday, that I had a new job and my last day there was Friday of that week. Wednesday morning I ceased answering my phone [had a very good relationship with the main receptionist and she supported me and routed "all" my calls to the Manager and I received many calls in a day]. I sat at my desk Wednesday, Thursday and Friday doing nothing. I read the paper. Called friends. Read books. Took long lunches. And just behaved myself in my cubicle. I did this until Friday at 4:00pm, the time for the Exit Interview. Being a Field Adjuster I had an assigned Company Car which I continued to drive.
On Friday I had my "exit" Interview. I left nothing out. Every gory detail was given. I had kept notes. Although it was not my purpose, I had the H.R. person in tears. I apologized to her profusely, said it was not her fault. She was in tears because she knew this guy had destroyed a department and affected others in other departments.
I finished up at about 5:45pm. The Manager approached me, I told him to fuck off and have a good life. No one had made arrangements about the Company Car, so I had driven my wife's new Nissan 300xz that day and left the Company Car at home. I gave him the keys and had him sign a document I had prepared, absolving me of any responsibility as to the Company Car parked in front of my house.
Did I burn my Bridges? No. The Claims Community in my major PNW metro area was close knit. The message had gotten out.
The Manager was fired 6 weeks later. I also learned that he stopped his harassment immediately. The other 5 Adjusters in line later thanked me.
To the best of my knowledge he never worked in the Insurance Field again.
9 months later, I received a call from Bill H., an Owner of an Elite and well respected, Independent Adjusting Company. I was happy where I was at with my new Company, but he persuaded me to come and talk to him anyway. I ended up taking that job and a very substantial increase in Salary and Bonuses. Independents work on the Billable hour, so in less than a year I had doubled my Income, not including more benefits and a better Company Car. And as an Independent, I was as c
Everything depends on why you are leaving.
Case 1: You are leaving because you had a better offer from another company. In this case, you have nothing in particular to gain by telling the exit interviewer anything at all. You neither benefit by telling the truth nor by lying.
Case 2: You have been fired. Again, you have nothing to gain by either telling the truth or lying.
Case 3: You have been laid off as part of a reduction in force and there is a possibility that if business improves they'll hire you back. In this case you have something to gain by flattering the company and its people. Tell them how much you regret leaving. Tell them they were great to work with and you wish things were different.
Case 4: You are leaving because you didn't like the working conditions, had moral objections to the way management runs the company, your boss was a giant prick, etc. You have nothing to gain by telling the truth or lying.
But in the absence of having anything to gain, there are still motivations that come into play. Would you like to make working conditions better for the people you're leaving behind? Chances are you don't despise all of them. Identify the wasteful and counterproductive practices, useless or abusive bosses and meaningless makework that were part of your job. Tell your interviewer how they made your job harder and are still making others lives harder. Maybe, just maybe, this information will get to the right people, especially if you were a highly productive employee. Somebody knows that. In all likelihood your boss and maybe your boss's boss know that. And now they know they are losing productive employees in part because of their working environment.
In most cases, you should lie about salary. Tell them you are taking a job that pays more, allows you more control of your work and offers more benefits. HR is always trying to find the lowest total cost of benefits and salary at which they can hire and retain the people they need. It is in all workers' best interest if their estimates are pushed to the high side. And the HR people at the company you're leaving talk, directly or indirectly, to the people at the company you're going to, and to every other company where you or someobody you care about might eventually work.
Except Tricky Dicky kept all the good stuff to himself for his own future purposes.
Someone pointed out that if you're going to be critical in your exit interview, keep it constructive, don't just blow off steam. I think the exit interview is a good place to provide feedback on issues that would... not be career enhancing... should you volunteer your opinions while employed. But even then, keep it constructive. "That business venture was not a good idea, and resulted in the following collateral damage (a) (b) (c)" rather than "That was the stupidest decision since the redneck lit the fuse and said "watch this!!!"
And for Fudd's sake, don't do it until you have signed the papers on your new job. Just in case.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
... what if I'm ACTUALLY going to lunch?
Then you're going meet a client during your lunch-break.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I had the opportunity to burn bridges that needed burning in an exit interview once.
I took complains, issues, and documentation. They took it seriously, and shook the hell out of the department when I left. My manager was "promoted" to a position where he had no staff. Soon after, he 'left.'
Exit interviews are situational, like everything else in life. Treat accordingly.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
It all depends on what actions are taken with the information - and who does the interviews.
A few years ago now - over a period - my company lost several key developers - and tech experts. I don't work for our HR department - but I was working as a peer (with 15+ years experience) to those that had left. I rapidly got fed up with seeing some really good colleagues leave - and so I requested to as many as I could to exit interview them. Noone that I asked declined - as they knew that I wasn't from HR - and I explained that the main reason was to improve the company - and try to fix the issues that they had with it. I had quite a detailed set of questions - and collected answers in the same manner from all. Then I went through the answers - and came up with suggestions to improve things. One of the key things for our company was - that when tech experts / devs get to a certain level - the only career paths open to them - was management or sales - and most wanted neither. I started the changes such that we managed to introduce a technical expert career track - which means that you can now be a tech expert all the way up to the second to top level in our company (top level being director / CEO). Subsequently I got comments from those that left that if this had happened earlier - then they might not have left. There were many other issues that we took forwards and tried to address - some with success - some not. I've always believed that it is best to try to fix the company I work for before looking outside. If the company I work for ever becomes closed to these fixes - then I will up sticks and go elsewhere.
OK, not really, but it's a fun thought to entertain.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An exit interview is giving information for nothing in return. I appreciate much more when people post their own reviews on Glassdoor.com rather than just sharing their thoughts with HR.
I've had it both ways. Sealed letters in academia can be ruthlessly honest
Sealed letters effectively don't exist in the UK (probably the EU). A freedom of information request can be used to unseal anything held about the applicant. Also, for hiring, especially if you hire someone foreign, records of all applicants have to be kept for a year (then destroyed), incase immigration want to do an audit.
It's rare to receive a bad reference. A neutral reference is usually considered bad, but one has to take care if you don't know the referee and doubly so if there are cultural differences (e.g. German referee, applicant applying to the UK).
A relatively common way is to put in a clanging hint that the person doing the hiring should telephone the referee. This is usually code for "so bad I can't put it in writing".
But yes, academics tend to be brutally honest when given the chance. A bad student is a timesuck and a bad postdoc can poison a lab. It's alomost always better not to hire than to hire bad people. Most academics know this and know each other, and rely on each other for collaboration, thesis reviews, passing students out to be postdocs, etc etc. Therefore, academics tend to be pretty honest with each other over this kind of thing.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Put it this way:
If you left partly because that guy was someone you didn't want to work with, burning bridges in that case actually works FOR you. Because if you ever run into a place where he's in any position where he has a say over you job - you've AUTOMATICALLY and PURPOSELY stopped yourself submitting to the same problems all over again.
Of course, it matters how / when / what you do, but burning bridges isn't necessarily a death-knell. If I hate working with you, enough to complain about it when I left, the chances of ever wanting to work with you ever again are slim. And if you'll ever have a say over whether or not I get a job (and thus, whether or not I continue to have that job in the future), I probably WANT you to veto me, even if I never knew it happened.
Burning bridges just to let off steam is immature. But sometimes you burn a bridge because you KNOW you will never, ever want to go back over that river again and doing so stops you even if you lapse in your willpower.
Once in my life I was honest in an exit interview and it came back to haunt me later...
I had an exit interview after I had worked for a automotive-related company in the Netherlands. At the time, it was promised to me that whatever I said in this interview would remain a private matter between me and the HRM department and would be used in an anonymous context to improve things. Even so, I refrained from making any remarks towards the functioning of individual colleagues or my boss, and only commented on the serious flaws in research and development strategy the company (and my department) deployed, which were actually the reasons I decided to leave. It was constructive feedback. No ranting, nothing of the kind. I outlined a strategy that would, in my opinion, work out. My arguments seemed to be taken seriously and I went away with the feeling that at least I did what I could to steer things in the right direction...
About three years later I was invited back for an interview by a different department of the same company who had specific needs for my expertise and I felt that in this department I could do some useful work. However, before I was hired, I was invited by my former department head for an interview. In this interview the gloves came off: He had an exact copy of everything I had said in the previous exit interview before him and he was NOT amused. He said the interview was "to see if I had learned something in the meantime" but it was blatantly obvious that he was going to block me from being hired back. Didn't need to because I declined immediately after I learned how HRM had handled this.
In the end, it turned out for the better, because it was one of the events that prompted me to start my own company and I am now making more money that I could ever have made over there and I am sure having a lot more fun doing it. Still it sucked at the time...
Hmmm, I seem to have missed a
I am 40 years old. Five years ago I arranged my life and my finances in such a way that when I have had enough, I get up and walk out, without a seconds notice. I don't say a word to anyone, and I go find another job. I don't worry about technical references, and the best I can expect is for a company to confirm I worked there, nothing more, nothing less.
I have never been happier. I am no longer a slave to bad jobs and bad companies.
Because of my cavalier attitude, bad things may be said about me from time to time, and it may occasionally torpedo a job I am looking at, and I will most certainly never be well-off, but that stuff doesn't matter to me. It allows me more freedom than most can imagine.
Now, the things that allowed me to do this are no kids, no alimony and a damn strong resume with a skillset that is constantly in demand. What I have found is that as much as companies and recruiters would like to vett me, they are willing to overlook a lot for the right candidate or that recruiter dollar.
Also, I have never signed up for or used twitter, myspace, facebook, or any other social media except linkedin, which I deleted after they were hacked. I think this is very important to keeping a low profile in the jobs industry.
I had an excellent boss, a very good one above him, and a decent one above him. Next came Loony Toons, who would do stuff like scan the internet records of every employee in the billion-dollar company looking for weather.com. If he found it, a stern rebuke was to be given to the unlucky soul who dared to check the forecast while at work.
I could list at least twenty-five more incidents that prove that this executive couldn't land a job as a box stacker at any company but his family's.
In my case, it was in the midst of an ice storm, and I wanted to know the prospects for making it home on my 25-mile drive.
When I was downsized, I laid into that fruitcake with both barrels. I know I'll never work for that self-righteous, pseudo-religious family-owned again, but it felt good, it didn't affect my finding another job, and maybe, just maybe, it will help the rest of the family grow cojones and pay that idiot to stay away.
I have a lifetime better-than-50% rate of turning interviews into job offers, and I don't lie in interviews. Maybe my success rate is *because* I present myself plausibly. I know on the other side of the table the only hiree I've been delighted with as a co-worker is someone who was modest and honest in the interview.
Right, and none of this can help the interviewees that leave before the problem is fixed. The interviewees, take on considerable risk to themselves for _maybe_ helping others? Yeah, the guy above who said "fuck that" is wholly correct, if a bit blunt.
Refuse to have an exit interview. I refused to tell them where I was going to or even if I had another job at all. Never put it past your former employer to contact them and talk shit about you, threaten to sue them make non compete noises etc anything. They didn't care if you lived or died when you worked for them they're only looking to screw you over now. And in fact, if you're going to somewhere else vaguely related to what you used to do, it's GOOD for them to continue to fail and screw up. Let them do more of that or at least be clueless. Because they are shit, so fuck them with a radioactive knife to the eye.
Either they will fire you soon anyway or outsource you, or, you will be even angrier and wind up quitting under worse terms than before. At best, at the very best you can consider coming back as a contractor a-la IBM 'outplacements' if you really have to. It's always for far less money and they use you up like candy in a vending machine. But at least the fuck-you relationship is out in the open. Like we used to say in the CCCP "We pretend to work they pretend pay us."
I was very unhappy at my old job (with management). I was polite in my exit interview, but certainly did not give them any praise, including the people conducting the interview. I had no concern about the repercussions, simply because the company I was moving from was hated in the industry, and the company I was moving to had a long history of disagreement with them.
In this case, the management of the company I was leaving telling the new company that I was "not a team player" and all the other drivel serves me better than a glowing review. Of course, it's worth noting that I had been a liaison to the new company prior to moving there, so they already knew I was a hard worker and competent.
Just another ignorant American.
Who can not be honest even when people are willing to listen and the chance of personal consequences is far-fetched, I have to say that your current employer is not losing anything by you living.
Just speak your mind. The company may not put much weight on any one opinion, but they most probably do care about a statistical picture of people leaving the whole company or a specific department.
I used to work at a place where the local director was the absolute power king over every employee, every division, every task in the geographic area. He had to report up the line to someone from a different city, but if it happened in or around Houston he was responsible for it. Call him a "choke point" if you like but there was no "stovepiping" in the organization. Such would be impossible since he knew everything that was going on.
He also knew every name of all 2000 of his employees, their spouses names, and most of their kids names. The guy was amazing to work for and almost no one ever left.
Anyone who did leave (most via retirement) got an hour of his time. It was an unstructured time. He asked few if any questions. Anything you said was heard by the only person in the place who could unilaterally fix any problem. He was there to thank you for your years of service and hear anything you had to say.
Understand, please, that this was a guy who fixed problems. I once saw him suspend an entire working group for a day and send them home because of the way they had treated a retail customer. He then called all the first and mid-level managers in that department and ordered them to drive in from their outlying offices, stand at the counter, and serve the walk-in customers for the rest of the week while he personally conducted customer service training for the suspended employees. Sweetest guy you'd ever want to meet but, boyohboy, he could kick ass when he was forced.
Given all that, not much changed after he heard an exit interview because few people had witnessed enough continuing bad behavior to warrant a change. Still, the few bad managers we had would try, years in advance, to transfer out employees who were nearing retirement. If you were a jerk boss and you let someone retire out of your group, The Director would hear about you. And you would, quite likely, find yourself demoted to working alongside the people you used to boss around. If he was told about a real equipment safety problem, you'd see him talking to the maintenance guys and their boss, personally, to find out how to fix it. If he was told that the paper workflow in a certain place was screwy, you'd see him drop in to shadow some low-level employee for a day.
Hell, he shadowed two field employees per year for an entire day of public interaction out of general principle. Truly a great guy.
That was a quarter-century ago. I realize times are different now and people are much more mobile. No executive could spend an hour with everyone who leaves; there aren't enough hours in the day. Thus, exit interviews, even if they happen, are conducted by an HR drone.
Exit interviews to an HR department are a waste of time. Exit interviews with the big boss can be something completely different.
There is some interesting points from the /. crowd here.
As for TFA, well I'm not going to base my professional behavior on an article whose central character chooses to call himself "TurdMurder."
At my work, I am one of the members of the "workers council" (Netherlands). Few years ago we had a period when employees left citing the working conditions and pay as major motives. I mean, they said that to the council. However, everyone completely "forgot" to mention this in their exit interviews.
Therefore, when the council brought the question to the management the answer was "No-one has left because of working conditions or wages - here are the exit interviews. Case closed."
I say "circle closed". There is something deeply troubling about the absolute egoism, which seems to be the major characteristic of western societies. People want the council to make a difference yet we cannot get them to even state the issues in front of authority. Suddenly everyone becomes a pussy and goes into "have wife and kids to feed" mode. Well, how do you make ANY progress in such society where people self-censor themselves and lie to themselves just because there MIGHT be some (however minor) repercussions. And we are not talking here of being sent to Gitmo, but the remote possibility that your new boss calls the old boss or some such. Everyone likes to endlessly bitch at the coffee-corner but when the authority is present the cat steals their tongues...
I have to say that my experience in life has thought me that the real enemy of the common people is....the common people - all of us. Not the people in power - they won't stand a chance against the rest. True, they would use any trick in the book to stifle opposition and yet....they wouldn't stand a chance should the people decide to hold them accountable.
Go in front of the mirror and say 100 times pointing with your finger "You are my greatest enemy" and "Hell is other people".
1 make it clear that if they want you back after your severance has paid then it will take X in salary Y in benefits ect
2 Optional step : tell them where all that "undocumented" stuff is actually documented
3 be as truthful as you think would help
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
You're clearly missing my point then. I'm talking about a long term view. If you're doing the exit interview in the first place, you already decided to leave - so even if the problems were fixed quickly, it wouldn't make a difference to you in the short term.
My point is, you never know if years later, you might want to work at the same company again? I've worked for 2 or 3 places where former employees came back. In one case, the guy had retired, but decided to come back out of retirement and asked if the company would consider re-hiring him.
If you helped contribute to a positive change or improvement at the place upon your exit, it will simply make it that much better if you do decide you'd like to take a job there again someday.
I don't think it's taking on any risk if you're tactful in your exit interview. It sounds like some of you are just hot-heads who probably deserve not to have the jobs you're complaining about, if you can't even figure out how to explain both the pros and cons of your workplace to an H.R. person without it sounding like you're a danger to re-hire!
Was this article needed? I can see it being useful for someone out in the real world with their first professional job, but for anyone who has had a few jobs and who has common sense I don't see the need for such an article.
Um, you are leaving the company, YOUR PROBLEM, is solved. You have nothing to gain from an exit interview and the potential of offending people who future employers might call for a reference.
If the company cared about your issues they would have done something about it while you were still there....assuming your brought it up. As far as those left behind go, they are adults, it is up to them to bring up any problems they have.
If you are burning to vent, invite a friend out for a few drinks and a meal.
Exit interviews exist for the benefit of HR departments. It makes them look like they providing useful information and a useful service to the company.
Exit interviews are the first thing to go when times are hard, which tells us that these companies definitely assess the value proposition of doing them and aren't just doing them for the hell of it,"
The fact that they're the first thing to go shows they have value....
I agree. You don't have to be negative, but you don't have to be positive either.
Q: "How did you get along with your boss?"
Don't be brutally honest and say "I didn't, he's a clueless asshole". You could just as easily say "We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things"... if they ask you to expand on that, you can say "I'd rather not". Saying you don't want to talk about something does actually say something. Or you can talk about things/processes without targeting individuals.
There are ways to say things, and those people paying attention will get your meaning. I find it much more effective whether in an exit interview or not. I've gone into exit interviews with the intention of telling them everything that I thoguht was wrong, and always ended up just not doing it. I just wanted to walk away. With the one exception being where they let me go for telling them I couldn't do something they asked of me (which was impossible BTW). They told me they brought in someone who could do it. I said "he won't be able to". That guy was gone in 3 months, and the company folded after another 6. That company got exactly what it deserved. I've since received linkedin requests from the clueless execs of that company, and again - instead of telling them to fuck off I just ignored the requests. I'm at peace with that.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I think it pays not to lose your cool in any professional environment. The key (as far as is humanly possible) is to be polite, respectful and easy to work with or for, in any professional context. Bottom line, chances are that you will cross paths with these people again, and the probability increases significantly when you meet people who know other people etc. Case in point. I used to work with a fellow developer who was just an ass. Unhelpful, condescending, backstabbing - just a plain awful human being (good coder but soft skills were a real issue for this jerk). In the last 10 years I've been asked multiple times to provide a reference for this guy via mutual contacts simply because I worked with him in the past - and have refused every time. Politely and legally. It speaks volumes. Lots of doors have closed for him just because he couldn't take the time to act like a decent human being. ...and it costs so much energy to be a dick, why bother burning bridges?
should result in a stiff ass kicking from the labor board
Regulatory capture: In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
Direct experience with one, second hand experience with three other cases. Trust me, the labor board is not there to help you any more than your arbitration hearing is interested in coming to a fair decision.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
...you sound like a confused 16-year-old kid, and the ex-teacher in me feels like giving it one more try...
The Soviet Union was officially working under Marxist-Leninist Communism, not Socialism. By the way, they stopped Hitler cold, made it to space first, fielded the MiG series of aircraft and created the world's most popular rifle. Unlike Al-Qaeda, the Russkies were enemies you could be proud of. :-)
Albania, also Communist and not Socialist, "was led by Enver Hoxha (died 1985) and the Party of Labour of Albania. During this period Albania became industrialised and saw rapid economic growth, as well as unprecedented progress in the areas of education and health. The average annual rate of increase of Albania's national income was 29% higher than the world average and 56% higher than the European average.[34]"
Cambodia descended into an orgy of blood led by Pol Pot, another dictator who was ostensibly Communist. It was your basic rerun of the French Days of Terror. The killing started with richly-deserved revenge from the peasants, slipped on the blood and slid into a horror movie to make Joseph Conrad blanch.
North Korea, again ostensibly Communist, led by incompetent dictators since the armistice of their civil war.
We still having talked about any Socialist states yet, but there are two more Communist ones worth mentioning. China is still definitely Red, at least on paper. We owe them 1.2 trillion dollars, and every major corporation of note in the US does business there.
Finally, we have God's view on Communism. If you're an Evangelical "Born Again" Christian, here's a couple of lines from Acts worth keeping in mind:
Acts 2:44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.
Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
OK, so that's the skinny on Communism. It's had a few successes, a lot of shambling horrors, and it seems to be the economic system favored in Heaven.
Below let's talk about the horrendous horrors of truly socialist countries like Sweden, France, Canada and Japan.
Well, Sweden seems to suffer from a lot of insufferably tall and blonde people who look like they belong in beer commercials. France is still filled with arrogant people who seem to have the benefit of regular health care and actual vacations. Canada is definitely further north than Chicago, and their main export seems to be comedians. Nothing interesting ever happened in Japan.
OK, time for the quiz at the end of the chapter.
1. Socialism is:
a. spelled "C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-M"
b. an economic system employed by almost every Western democracy
c. a stupid sound-bite off FOX news that I parrot at every opportunity because I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Grades will be posted outside my office by Friday at 6.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Humour...People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are able to experience humour, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. ...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
HR are, almost without exception, useless parasites, intent only on covering their own arses and justifying their parasitism. If your company grows/ develops / acquires a HR department, then now is probably a good time to be leaving.
(There may be a case for a HR department if your weekly hires/ fires is in the dozens or more. But then they're treating people like a commodity, and that's not good. Even if they are a commodity, like a burger-flipper, or a shovel-pusher.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I think if they want an exit interview, I'm just going to email them a link to this.