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Exit interviews are a trap

jacobian.org

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Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#111

Post by dbg31415 »

Great advice here.

HR is NEVER your friend. They are not on your side. DO NOT TRUST HR.

Anonymous feedback is never anonymous. DO NOT TRUST HR.

Here's the deal... Exit interviews, as a manager, were annoying because they could ding me on my annual reviews. And that's fine, except... people would complain about things I had no control over. "Oh, my manager made me do something stupid that I didn't like!" Yup, I get it. Only it wasn't ever me making them do that, it was my boss, or a client. And still, as the manager, I'd get blame.

And you know what I did with that information? Every time someone trashed me, or the company, in an exit interview, I'd remember it. And 2-3 jobs from now, when you need a rec, or you need someone to say something nice about your time at my company, I'd be unavailable. Or if the new place you were applying called, and asked me, "Do you have any feedback about X candidate?" You better believe I had things to say about the people who were negative.

The advice in the post are spot on. Keep your mouth shut. Odds are it's not your boss that's making the bad decisions. Odds are the culture is exactly how the people at the top want it to be. Anything you dislike, it's likely out of your manager's control. Trashing them is just a sign you don't see the big picture. And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. And odds are you'll need them to say something nice about you at some point.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#112

Post by ghusto »

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 her job, but it's not going to do her any favours either

My counter-advice then, is:

Be honest every day, and do your work well. If you get in trouble for telling the truth, that's not a company you need to be at. I have yet to get into trouble for being honest, even when when it the truths were difficult to swallow, but of course it depends on where you are in your career.

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.

EDIT: For formatting

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#113

Post by noir_lord »

I told my boss at the time that the reason I was leaving was because they where forcing us back into the office to do meetings from our desk in the middle of the pandemic (which it was, 18mths ago June).

I also told him that if they didn't change that policy they'd haemorrage their most senior staff.

Of the 9 lead devs they had at the time (including me) they lost 7 over the next 8mths (I already knew three where leaving in the interview just hadn't announced it yet).

It took them another 8mths to decide that remote might be an option, after literal decades of experience on their systems (not me I was a relatively new hire) walked out the door.

Now they are constantly posting vacancies for leads and fighting in a market where a lot the good jobs offer remote first if wanted.

Now if my boss was smart he'd have seen the writing on the wall, saved his dev team knowledge and could have hired before the boom in remote dev.

The thing you realise as you move up in seniority is that the people in "charge" are really no brighter than the people they are in charge off, he was my boss because he was the senior of the two devs on the original spinoff company and so just moved up a level every time they expanded, he was a fairly terrible manager of people and didn't have the backbone to deal with his boss when it was necessary.

References really aren't a think in the UK (at least no one has ever checked mine that I know off) so I was less concerned about that and I had zero intention of ever working for that company again so if I set the bridge on fire, so be it.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#114

Post by nitwit005 »

Seems pointlessly Machiavellian. Sure, theoretically, you could get burned by what you say in an exit interview. I've never heard of it happening. Typically you end up being the 20th person to say what you said.

If your company is so poisonous they won't give you a referral based on feedback they requested, they probably wouldn't give you a referral no matter what.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#115

Post by jeffwask »

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…

> If they are not professional, they weren't going to give you a good reference anyway.

Most 'references' are "Bill worked here from 6/2019 to 12/2020. Bill left with the title of Chief Ball Washer."

They may throw in an eligible for rehire or not but the boomer idea of a Employer Reference has been dead and buried almost as long as I have been in the workforce. And I'm closer to retirement than I am to when I joined the workforce.

Shit at most of the places I have been the leadership turns over faster than the employees so there's no one there to say how I worked anyway.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#116

Post by javier_e06 »

In one exit interview I said to HR: "Working in this project is like watching a bad movie. I wouldn't watch a bad movie even if you pay me because I cannot un-see it." She responded: "Like watching Sharknado" "Yes!" I replied. Best-exit-interview-ever.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#117

Post by c7DJTLrn »

As it happens I had an exit interview today. I have no idea what the author is talking about but I don't think HR retribution because of feedback is a thing in London, at least not as far as I know. I don't care if there's nothing for me to "gain". You know, not everything in life has to be for your benefit. Sometimes what people say is what they really mean and they're not trying to subvert you or trap you.

I will be honest until the day I die. I hate the avoidant, sugar coating culture we've developed. Brutal honesty is a path to big change.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#118

Post by justin_oaks »

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 have important concerns to bring up in the exit interview, then why didn't you bring it up previously?

When I left a previous job, I didn't say any of the reasons why I was leaving. All the problems in the company had been previously expressed by me or other people MULTIPLE TIMES. The problems were always ignored. I didn't want to bring them up again just to have someone argue that those problems "aren't that big of a deal" or "must not be the real reason you're leaving" so I kept my mouth shut.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#119

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #33
cpach wrote: post #22

What’s the point of exit interviews really? I had an exit interview earlier this year. All the constructive criticism I had, I had already given, during my tenure. And as Jacob alludes to, there’s no point in venting in an exit interview.

I've always assumed the point was that an employee on their way out would be more forthright in providing honest and candid feedback since they're no longer worried about getting fired, and they would use that feedback to reduce further turnover. But seeing how rarely that feedback is acted on, yeah...I'm failing to see the point in exit interviews.

The biggest underlying issue seems that no feedback is acted on.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#120

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

Apreche wrote: post #29

What's with the assumption that you are quitting a job because it sucks? A lot of times people have to quit or change jobs for their own reasons and only have positive things to say. And if the job does suck, who cares if you burn bridges there on the way out? You only need to maintain bridges that go to good places.

> who cares if you burn bridges there on the way out? You only need to maintain bridges that go to good places.

Unless you discover one day that the way forward, to your horror, just might have been across one of those bridges you burned.

Also, people talk.

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