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Exit interviews are a trap

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Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#171

Post by throw1230 »

aroundtown wrote: post #99

I made the mistake and told the truth one time early in my career. I got fired, err... I wasn't retained after a multi-month temp period, and was brought in to be fired, then exit interviewed. I was upset, but stuck to the truth. My direct boss was passive aggressive, didn't like me, and excluded me from the team. His code was awful, in the long term wasn't maintainable, and wouldn't be able to meet the needs of the…

It sounds like you weren't meeting the needs of the company either and this is all sour grapes.

If someone is not meeting the expectations or underperforming and it's not a character problem. I'd be open to working with them if they did some growing somewhere else. If however, you have this kind of attitude of blame-shifting and finger pointing without any substance to back it up, no one will want to work with you.

Your boss was right in warning his friends.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#172

Post by ClumsyPilot »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #135
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> criticize bad managers. What do you do when you work for a company where you think managers are bad, and their managers are bad, but they all think they are great and they think you're the problem? How do you objectively (not subjectively) determine if a manager is bad? If 200 people in the organization are "happy enough", it's your word versus theirs on what a good manager vs a bad manager is. HR doesn't care (in…

I mean maybe you need to find a different job? What do you consider a "sexy" problem?

Something that makes tangiable improvement to the real world would be a good start

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#173

Post by khazhoux »

ghusto wrote: post #112

Good lord, what terrible advice. If anyone is reading this and thinking of adopting his ideas, please consider (with the exception being if you're still early in your career): 1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins 2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill 3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose h…

I feel like author actually considered all your points, but regardless arrives at the same conclusion:

The expected value of an exit interview -for you, the individual- is near-zero or possibly negative.

At the point of your exit interview, you're done with the company. You're no longer part of the team, you're no longer in the family. Your advice and feedback is that of someone who decided to jump ship.

I suppose if you're the absolute top performer at your company and they begged for you to stay, and the VP asked for one last chat to get your advice on how to fix the company... then sure, go for it. Otherwise, just hand over your badge and wish them all the best of luck.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#174

Post by bumby »

ramesh31 wrote: post #74
bumby wrote: post #20

My issue with the author's claims is that everything is framed in a "what's in it for me" reference. Even when they decided to break their own rule and go to an exit interview, the decision was made because there was the "didn’t think I had any downside risk." There are times when your personal choices may need to take a backseat to more important goals. If you are really committed to a mission, even one you've decid…

> If you are really committed to a mission, even one you've decided to leave, I would think you'd want to give feedback that can help improve the chances of that mission being successful, even if there's a personal downside risk. Let's not have any illusions about the "mission" that 99% of us are on. That mission is to do mind numbing meaningless work on some ad-tech platform because they pay us 3x the median salary…

I agree that "mission" is more buzzword than substance in SV. But there are certainly many people outside that bubble who work in organizations with missions that are important to them. List any number of governmental, safety-critical, or health related fields for an idea. IMO, extreme pay is a way to compensate precisely because they know it's not a purpose they really identify with.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#175

Post by jimbokun »

decebalus1 wrote: post #75
dweinus wrote: post #39

Is everyone really doing exit interviews this wrong? At my company the exit interview is with HR. All feedback is anonymous, rolled up with non-exit feedback, and delivered to managers/leads periodically so it can't be easily linked back. As a manager, this has been extremely helpful. HR is not always your friend, but in my scenario there is really nothing to lose.

> All feedback is anonymous, rolled up with non-exit feedback, and delivered to managers/leads periodically so it can't be easily linked back Oh sweet summer child.. No feedback is anonymous, ever. It can be 'confidential', which means that HR can disclose it at their discretion or as appropriate. As a manager, if you get value from the exit interview, with all due respect, you're doing it wrong. All the feedback whi…

> As a manager, if you get value from the exit interview, with all due respect, you're doing it wrong.

Well...yes. Isn't the entire point of an exit interview, from the organization's perspective, to find out what they're doing wrong?

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#176

Post by agilob »

legitster wrote: post #26

I have no idea what the author is on about. The exit interview is often the best 30 minutes of a bad job! You can tell them what they are doing well, what they aren't doing well, praise good employees and criticize bad managers. If you are both professionals, it's a cathartic experience that supports your remaining coworkers. If they are not professional, they weren't going to give you a good reference anyway. But if…

>I have no idea what the author is on about. The exit interview is often the best 30 minutes of a bad job!

My exit interview at a toxic job was really bad. I was given old format of exit interview form, me and my manager knew it's not going to be imported into a system and analysed, it has quite stupid questions like "would you stay for 2% more salary", or asking to blame people "is any of below a reason of you leaving: PO, SM, fellow developer/QA", while most people were leaving thanks to C-level people who didn't want to recognise their fault. If they knew employee was leaving the company for a lot more money of changing role, they were asked different questions that made the company look more positive to investors.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#177

Post by decebalus1 »

jimbokun wrote: post #175
decebalus1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All feedback is anonymous, rolled up with non-exit feedback, and delivered to managers/leads periodically so it can't be easily linked back Oh sweet summer child.. No feedback is anonymous, ever. It can be 'confidential', which means that HR can disclose it at their discretion or as appropriate. As a manager, if you get value from the exit interview, with all due respect, you're doing it wrong. All the feedback whi…

> As a manager, if you get value from the exit interview, with all due respect, you're doing it wrong. Well...yes. Isn't the entire point of an exit interview, from the organization's perspective, to find out what they're doing wrong?

And why should the employee help with that? And why at that point? There's a lot of opportunities for feedback during employment. If you're banking on exit interviews, you've already lost and you're doing it fundamentally wrong.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#178

Post by mherdeg »

julienb_sea wrote: post #59
optymizer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically and assuming 1) at-will employment, 2) company policy requires exit interview and 3) they didn't care about the knowledge transfer, could the company then terminate you "for cause" because you refused to do the exit interview?

Yes, they could, that is the definition of at-will employment. As long as the termination reason is not illegal there is nothing stopping them. Some employers will escort you out of the building immediately once you let them know you plan to leave, I know multiple examples of this happening at Microsoft at least.

When I was at MSFT a little over 10 years ago the norm was that to be that if you gave notice, and said where you were going, and it was a competitor in certain industries, you would be escorted out immediately or same-day.

Our extended team was pretty collegial about this -- de facto, people could choose to work out their 2 weeks by keeping quiet, or to leave right away by naming a name. (I think this got you some extra vacation? Never quite sure how that worked out.)

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#179

Post by danparsonson »

ghusto wrote: post #112

Good lord, what terrible advice. If anyone is reading this and thinking of adopting his ideas, please consider (with the exception being if you're still early in your career): 1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins 2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill 3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose h…

With respect that's quite naive.

> 1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins

'Leaving a job that doesn't suit you' is the part where you're being true to yourself; whatever you say in the exit interview usually doesn't have a material positive effect on one's own life except possibly the chance to get some closure if things have been really bad - in such situations, however, I would say there is a less than average chance of achieving even that, otherwise maybe it would have been possible to work things out without leaving.

> 2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill

So whose name should I write down when asked for a referee? My own? As the article said, later in your career this is much less of a concern but when starting out and being an unknown quantity, every sympathetic connection is more valuable because you don't have many.

> 3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose her job, but it's not going to do her any favours either

Sure it can, it happens all the time. Dick CEO will either find ways to rationalise the bad feedback, outright ignore it, or else the feedback won't make it that far up the chain as the interviewer values their own job and the CEO is a dick.

> If you get in trouble for telling the truth, that's not a company you need to be at.

Right, but... we're talking about exit interviews; by definition you won't be staying there and derive little to no benefit by being fully open even if things do change. The author of the post wasn't necessarily advocating lying unless there was no other way, just being economical with the truth.

> Also important; don't be a dick. There's a difference between telling the truth to constructive ends, and being a whiny critical negative contrarian.

Sure, that's always good advice, but it doesn't require total honesty; bland empty replies work just as well and don't trigger the kind of fragile egos that so often seem to make their way up the food chain.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#180

Post by skrebbel »

I don't know man, some bosses actually do want to learn and improve.

There's this narrative in the tech blogosphere that managers are, by definition, psychopaths who want to screw you over and I'm just not seeing it.

I mean, sure, this can happen but an honest and open exit interview can also just be a nice thing you do for a boss who you're happy to help succeed, even if you're leaving them.

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