Must-Ask Exit Interview Questions

Employee retention is essential in overcoming recruitment challenges in the highly competitive IT industry, where finding and attracting skilled professionals can be a difficult task. Recruitment and hiring practices are evolving as companies seek to fill roles in data, cybersecurity, cloud, the metaverse, and other disciplines with highly capable candidates with both technical ability and durable skills. IT departments in particular have been ramping up efforts to retain valuable employees in the face of ongoing talent gap issues, and exit interviews are a vital source of feedback to consider to be successful in such efforts.  

A thoughtful exit-interview process can create a constant flow of feedback on why employees stay, why they leave, and how the organization may need to change. This process can only implement change if the feedback is collected, analyzed, and the data is then shared and followed up with action.  

Importance of Exit Interviews

A study on exit interviews found that what you ask and how questions are phrased help to determine the quality of feedback. Therefore, you’ll want to be intentional with the wording and delivery of your exit interview questions so they yield information you can use.  

Questions to Ask

Here are some must-ask exit interview questions to gain valuable insight and understand potential areas for improvement for your organization:

What prompted you to start looking for another job?

According to a turnover report from LinkedIn, the tech industry has the highest turnover rate at 13.2%. Career growth, professional development, and compensation turned out to be the most important factors when switching or quitting a tech job. Identifying the specific triggers that led the employee to consider leaving can help the company take proactive measures to retain other valuable employees who might be facing similar concerns. 

What were the best and worst aspects of your job?

This question helps you identify what future candidates may enjoy or dislike about the role, as well as how to set the right expectations for the position. The employee may not want to be 100% honest with this answer at risk of leaving a bad impression on the interviewer or employer, so make sure their answers will not have any repercussions moving forward and that the interview is conducted by a neutral third party, rather than a direct supervisor.  

How has your job changed since you were hired?

Technology and IT roles are often dynamic and can evolve rapidly due to advancements in technology, changes in company priorities, or shifts in the market. A significant limitation of the current state of technological change is that it is difficult to predict future advancements, effects on job design, and labor market responses. Understanding how the employee’s job changed over time can help identify if they were given opportunities to grow and adapt to new challenges or if their role became stagnant.   

Do you think management adequately recognized your contributions? If not, how do you think recognition could be improved?

The exit interview is the best opportunity to reveal discrepancies between management’s perception of recognition and the employees’. As 83% of tech employees leave due to dissatisfaction with the job role today, addressing recognition gaps can lead to better alignment and employee satisfaction and retention moving forward. 

Did you feel you had the tools, resources, and technical training to be successful in your role? If not, which areas could be improved, and how?

Seeking feedback on training effectiveness and if employees felt they lacked essential resources provides an opportunity to improve training initiatives to align with industry standards and technological advancements. This can help a company understand gaps in its training programs, materials, or delivery methods to better equip future employees. Solutions for enabling communication, managing workflows, and gaining insight into team performance and behavior can help reduce friction both inter-team and intra-team. 

How do you feel the work-life balance of this job impacted your decision to leave?

There has been a large employee mindset shift when it comes to life-work integration. The tech industry is taking the lead in shaping modern, remote and hybrid workplaces among many other industries. This question’s answer can also help businesses decide to keep or change their work model, whether it’s based on employee choice or something more restrictive, as the tech industry takes massive shifts toward remote work models. As we’ve already seen in “The Great Resignation,” a lack of remote work options will push tech candidates to seek more flexible employers in the years to come. 

Did you feel comfortable providing feedback or expressing concerns during your time here? If not, why?

This question helps to gauge the level of psychological safety within the organization, and how to improve communication channels between management and employees moving forward. This is increasingly important to reduce turnover in the tech industry, as 65% of employees want improved feedback, and companies that invest in regular employee feedback have 14.9% lower turnover rates than organizations where employees do not receive feedback. 

Would you recommend working at our company to a friend, and why or why not?

Although they ultimately decided to leave your company, former employees can be excellent job candidate referral sources. Ideally, every departing employee would answer “yes” to this question, but there may be some who are unsatisfied enough with their experience that they wouldn’t recommend your company to their peers, and this question may uncover underlying reasons that weren’t stated outright in previous interview questions. 

Conducting Effective Exit Interviews

Exit interviews provide a valuable opportunity for employers to gather insights and feedback from departing employees about their experiences within the company if executed properly. They provide a unique opportunity to gather candid feedback from departing employees about their experiences within the company, including what influenced their decision to leave, areas where the company can improve, and potential issues affecting employee satisfaction and retention.  

Not only should exit interviews provide a safe place for open communication about company practices and areas for improvement, but the questions should also be positively framed to give the employee the ability to voice their opinions without repercussion. The feedback should then be analyzed to identify patterns, address organizational shortcomings, and make data-driven decisions to improve the overall work environment.  

Conducting exit interviews allows IT companies to learn from departing employees and take proactive measures to retain and attract top talent, leading to a more successful and sustainable organization.  

To learn more about mastering the exit-interview process, reach out to the experts at BCTG.   

Contributions from Julia Hoffman