Exit Interview Survey

Every employee who leaves takes institutional knowledge with them. But they also carry something more valuable to your organization's future: an honest assessment of what it is like to work there. Departing employees are uniquely willing to share feedback they held back while employed. An exit interview form captures that candor in a structured format your HR team can analyze across dozens or hundreds of departures to spot patterns that drive turnover.

This template has 28 fields across 4 pages in traditional mode. It collects department, tenure, reason for leaving, overall experience rating, willingness to recommend the company, and open-ended fields about what the employee enjoyed most and what could be improved.

Departure Reasons That Reveal Systemic Issues

The reason for leaving selector offers seven options: New Opportunity, Career Change, Compensation, Work-Life Balance, Management, Relocation, and Other. These categories are deliberately broad because the written fields capture the nuance. The selector's value is in aggregate. When you look at 50 exits over two years and see that 40% cited compensation, that is a data point your leadership team cannot ignore.

The tenure field (Less than 1 year, 1-2 years, 3-5 years, 5+ years) adds critical context. Early departures within the first year usually signal onboarding or expectation-setting problems. Departures at the 2-3 year mark often point to career growth ceilings. Exits from long-tenured employees frequently involve management changes or cultural shifts. Combining reason with tenure reveals not just why people leave but when the issues start.

Ratings and Written Feedback That Drive Real Change

The overall experience rating gives you a single score per departure that you can track over time. A declining trend is an early warning. The recommendation question (Definitely, Probably, Not Sure, Probably Not, Definitely Not) is your internal employer brand thermometer. If people would not recommend working at your company, your Glassdoor reviews and recruiting pipeline will eventually reflect that.

The two open-text fields are where the most actionable insight lives. "What did you enjoy most?" identifies the cultural strengths worth preserving and amplifying in your employer branding. "What could be improved?" surfaces the specific friction points. When multiple departing employees mention the same issue, that pattern becomes an agenda item for leadership.

Where Exit Interview Data Goes After Collection

HR teams at growing companies use this form as their standard off-boarding step, sending it to every departing employee during their notice period. People operations teams at larger organizations run quarterly analyses on exit data, presenting trends to leadership alongside retention metrics. Managers receive anonymized summaries of exit feedback from their teams so they can adjust their approach without identifying specific individuals. Some organizations share aggregated exit insights with their entire leadership team as part of an annual culture health report.