page_title: Exit interview
section_title: Methods for conducting exit interviews
hierarchical_section_title: Exit interview / Methods for conducting exit interviews
caption_attribution_description: English: The percentage of departing employees who successfully complete an exit interview, according to who conducted the interview.
context_page_description: An exit interview is a survey conducted with an individual who is separating from an organization or relationship. Most commonly, this occurs between an employee and an organization, a student and an educational institution, or a member and an association. An organization can use the information gained from an exit interview to assess what should be improved, changed, or remain intact. More so, an organization can use the results from exit interviews to reduce employee, student, or member turnover and increase productivity and engagement, thus reducing the high costs associated with turnover. Some examples of the value of conducting exit interviews include shortening the recruiting and hiring process, reducing absenteeism, improving innovation, sustaining performance, and reducing possible litigation if issues mentioned in the exit interview are addressed. It is important for each organization to customize its own exit interview in order to maintain the highest levels of survey validity and reliability.
  The exit interview fits into the separation stage of the employee life cycle.
context_section_description: There are various methods of conducting exit interviews, each with their benefits and disadvantages.
  Face to Face interviews
  Historically, this has been the primary method for conducting Exit Interviews (79% of organisations), although this is changing rapidly. These face to face meetings are usually conducted internally by a human resources professional or manager, or in rare cases, by an external consultant.
  Benefits: The main benefit of this method is that completion rates tend to be high, as long as the interview is conducted by a relevant and suitably skilled professional (external consultant, HR professional or indirect manager). In addition, departing employees have a personal experience which may cause them to speak more positively about the company (affecting their 'employer brand') after they leave. Also, if Interviewers are well trained, the content can be well structured and checked in real time to ensure accuracy of data, especially concerning reasons for leaving. This method also allows high quality data to be collected from people whose literacy skills are not good.
  Disadvantages: The disadvantages of this method are that the feedback is rarely captured in a way that allows reporting on trends with more than a third of organisations using this method having no reporting tool attached to their exit data. If conducted by an external consultant, this method can be expensive. It's also sometimes the case that the human resources professional who might conduct the interview, could be part of the employee's reason for leaving (e.g. I was overlooked in the pay review while on parental leave and my HR person wouldn't return my calls). This would mean that the employee is unlikely to be honest if that HR professional was conducting the exit interview. Unfortunately very few organisations (20%) provide any training on exit interviewing so the quality is often highly variable. In addition, this method is the most expensive if outsourced.
  Telephone interviews
  Exit Interviews conducted by telephone are becoming more common (41% of organisations) and are the most effective method of Exit Interviews.
  Benefits: Feedback is easy to capture and code in a form that allows easy reporting and analysis. Because the Interviewer's visual attention does not need to be dedicated to the person in front of them, as it does in a face to face interview, they are able to capture and code feedback in real time. Completion rates are the highest of all methods, possibly due to there being no need for the Interviewer and Interviewee to be in the same physical place, but also because the interview can be conducted even after the person has left (see Timing of Exit Interviews). If Interviewers are well trained, the content can be well structured and checked in real time to ensure accuracy of data, especially concerning reasons for leaving. And as with face to face interviews, the experience for the Interviewee can be very personal. This method is easy to outsource, and is less expensive than face to face interviews. It also allows for high quality data to be collected from people whose literacy skills are not good.
  Disadvantages: This method is that it is more expensive than online and paper surveys. Some Human Resources professionals enjoy conducting the interviews, so outsourcing the interviews removes this task.
  Paper surveys
  Exit interviews taken in paper form allows interviews to be conducted with those who do not have Internet access, and allows for the option of anonymity. However, it takes longer to receive feedback, and respondents who are not literate would find it difficult to use this medium. Information must also be entered into a tracking system manually for this medium. As at 2010, 46% of organisations still conducted Exit Interviews using this method.
  Online surveys
  As at 2010, 38% of organisations used this method for Exit Interviews.
  Benefits: This is the least costly method of conducting Exit Interviews, with several free survey software tools available on the market. It also collects data in a way that is easy to report an
caption: Percent of exit interviews completed according to who conducted the interview.
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