Would you be honest at your exit interview?

[chatenoire]

I really want to BUT I'm very good friend's with my manager and don't really want to cause her any trouble at work. HOWEVER it was her management and her actions that made me look for another job. Great friend, terrible manager.

No I wouldn’t mention it, especially being as your leaving anyway. If she is a great friend keep it that way.

What would the benefit of that be?

I would be non-committal.

How will it change for the next person if you do not speak up?

No.

I was very diplomatic when I left a job, and a few years later got a job with the same company in their head office, the head of hr now being the one from my original workplace.

I'd love to...but also think no good would come of it and sometimes it's better to say nothing (however hard I find it sometimes!)

Yes. Your exit interview is the best way to get things to change. Your friend could, ultimately, benefit from this as it should draw things to her attention that she needs to change.

I wasn't, because the organisation would not have acted on it.

As a manager, I did an exit interview with someone who was leaving, and he was very honest about issues - I fed them back to my manager and HR - and absolutely nothing happened - no one cared - it was just logged in the depths of a fileroom that no one ever looks in.

There was simply nothing to be gained through being honest when it came to me leaving, because I knew that there would be no change.

In fact, in the end, the organisation I left didn't even do an exit interview - they offered me one optionally if I wanted it. I just felt like it wasn't for my benefit - exit interviews are for organisations to understand what they could have done differently to retain staff - so why would I give up my time giving feedback if they don't even care?!

I did. It was a terrible time for me working up to me leaving and two managers led to me leaving a place and job i loved (the money wasn't too bad either). The HR woman assured me that themes are written down and given to the big bosses every quarter and everything is sanitised. I had no reason to doubt her as we worked well together on a lot of things.

As i started discussing my issues she said it was a common theme that was occurring with these two managers appearing in a lot of exit interviews.

Im still in touch with a lot of people there and things have changed as a result so it does work.

As yours is muddied due to being friends with the manager, see what their policy is about anonymity and how they report back.

Could you perhaps ham up what the new company has that you are leaving for, rather than directly stating X doesn't do Y.

We're a fairly small team. The last resignation within our team was in August last year, and nothing coming up this year. Plus what happened to me was unique to my situation, so everyone would know it was me.

No chance! It’s a small world and you never know where you might meet people again.

If you want to stay friends then no.

Only if I was retiring from all work forever and thus could be 100% certain I wouldn't one day be working with any of the people again.

Then I would really let them have it.

If she’s a friend then I’d just leave it.

What is the point?

It is a box ticking exercise.

No, I'd gloss over everything and say it was time to move on.

I wasn't because a previous colleagues were brutally honest in theirs, and absolutely nothing changed. Which was why I ended up leaving.
Colleagues that are still there complain to me that the same things are still happening.

No chance. Especially if it could bite you on the arse later on. I once waited 6 months & left a very truthful review on glass door though.

i wouldn’t say anything you’d regret saying if you ended up coming back. Even if you think that’s impossible.

I didn't do an exit interview because a) the junior HR member who wanted to talk to me was friends with a very gossipy colleague and b) the chances of any changes being made as a result were absolute zero. Two people in my department who had been there a few years exited not too long after me, along with a couple of newbies who'd been there less than a year within a couple of months of each other. So the turnover in the dept pretty much spoke for itself - and it wasn't a large dept.

I let the fact that I couldn't be bothered to give them headspace speak for itself. I don't doubt that my management expected a long diatribe about what was wrong so they could trash me and my work, and I wasn't going to give it to them.

I don’t think anything ever comes of “telling it like it is” at an exit interview. In fact, I think it’s a box ticking exercise and no one takes any notice.

I wasn't. My boss was a horrible boss. Really awful. The company we worked for had an extensive exit interview questionnaire and a lot of the questions were about your immediate supervisor. I refused to say anything bad about him. In retrospect, I wish I had told the truth. Weirdly enough, he was a good person - highly respected - but he was an awful boss who would trash his employees' self esteem. Nothing was EVER good enough. I left a year earlier than planned because I couldn't take it anymore. Ah. There. That feels better.

Please tell the truth, be as specific as possible.

A reason why being friends with people at work can be a bad idea.

I would have loved to be brutally honest. I think management were aware so I wasn't offered an exit interview 🤣🤣 tbf I never even got an acknowledgment of my resignation email either.

Large supermarket short staffed allowed people with no people skills to ruin the department.

I was, but it was obviously polite, and there wasn't anything personal to anyone in my feedback. It was general terms and the number one issue was the poor pay, which I am sure all the people who left before me will also have already said (staff turnover in the junior roles was high).