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Exit interviews are a trap

jacobian.org

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Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#91

Post by ryanbrunner »

tqi wrote: post #46

> Last I checked, the organization was still very much headed in the direction that I disagreed with. This assumes that your opinion on direction is the right one, and that anyone or team that doesn't agree is wrong?

You can disagree with a direction without it being wrong, necessarily. I quit a job once because they were making a hard pivot for the enterprise market, and a big reason that I joined the company was to get away from big enterprisey deals and work more with smaller B2B direct sales sort of tools.

It doesn't make the company going in that direction wrong, it's just not a company I wanted to work at anymore.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#92

Post by TameAntelope »

daenz wrote: post #30

In an exit interview I've done, it was clear to me that HR was trying to spin a story about why I was leaving that didn't align with what I was saying or trying to say. They were nice enough, but it was full of questions that appeared to be designed to invalidate my thoughts or feelings. For example, the question: "But did you have the resources you needed to do your job?" to my point of "I felt like I was set up to…

You lose every battle when you leave a company. That's just something you have to accept. They get to put whatever narrative out there that they want, and you won't be there to defend yourself.

The point is that it doesn't matter; you're gone.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#93

Post by [deleted] »

samstave wrote: post #77
gbfkjdjvc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing that passes through HR is anonymous. Ever.

HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, EVER. Ive been in orgs where HR was literally sleeping with head of sales, and had me fix phones with dickpics and BJ vids and etc btwn employees... uh HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. Do not confide in them, especially anything personal. Also, if you have an IOS device - log into your apple account and confirm the devices tied to it.. HR will (in many SV orgs) attempt to add a device to your apple accou…

[deleted]

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#94

Post by defen »

Scarblac wrote: post #50
dragonwriter wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR is the subunit of the firm dedicated to minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency across the firm (and thus, independently of the specific business function of other units) in the extraction of surplus value from workers. Their function within capitalist industry is directly, fundamentally, and uniquely concerned with the manner in which capitalist industry itself is hostile to workers. A firm in which HR is not g…

> HR is the subunit of the firm dedicated to minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency across the firm (and thus, independently of the specific business function of other units) in the extraction of surplus value from workers. And the best, and certainly the cheapest, way to achieve that is by having happy employees in a healthy work environment. So in my experience, that's what HR tries to achieve. I'm sorry your ex…

> And the best, and certainly the cheapest, way to achieve that is by having happy employees in a healthy work environment.

I think that's way too broad and general of a statement. It really depends on the nature of the industry, the competitive landscape, and many other things. In non-essential software, where the hands-on technical employees have tremendous influence over the direction of the firm, that may be true. In extractive industries and possibly even industrial ones it may be cheaper to externalize as many costs as possible, invest the bare minimum legally required in safety equipment and training, etc.

Why did it take strikes, literal shooting battles, legislative action, and generally tremendous amounts of effort to enact basic workers rights in this country if it would have been cheaper to just ... give people a happy and healthy working environment?

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#95

Post by lucisferre »

mistertester wrote: post #78

I am not afraid of doing an exit interview and putting everything on display, specially if leadership is toxic. It's important for HR to understand problems within the company so that they can be addressed. I have done this with no issues arising from it even though I have referenced that same employer in my resume.

It is rarely, if ever, HR's job to fix toxic leadership.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#96

Post by phphphphp »

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 usually love Jacob’s writing but I completely agree with you. I attend exit interviews, and I’m as honest as I can be, and I’ve never experienced a bad outcome… and I’ve given some pretty bad feedback! I’d go as far as to say, the worse the feedback is, the better the reception often is — because I’m offering up information that can, at the very least, help prevent others from quitting.

An exit interview is an explicit opt-in from the interviewer to hear bad news…

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#97

Post by fishtoaster »

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.

Yes, but there's a huge difference between termination and termination "for cause". The latter has specific meaning - it'll often trigger negative consequences like losing your vested equity. It usually only happens in egregious cases: fraud, harassment, punched a customer, etc. If you're merely refusing to do your job, you'd probably just be regular terminated (including if they decide to include "do the exit interview" as part of doing your job).

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#98

Post by throwaway195729 »

I quit my last job because my team ganged up on me and held an "intervention meeting" because I broke the production environment after my code had passed local development and staging. The person who found out didn't tell me, but silently fixed it and called for a meeting. I incidentally saw we had a meeting with a vague title, and asking about it, my team members avoided elaborating.

Eventually, the meeting was a scolding. I wouldn't accept this kind of behavior, so I stood my ground, switched teams a week later and "worked from home" on my last week on the team. (This essentially amounted to not showing at morning meetings, and not doing any work. Not voluntarily -- I refused to be in a meeting with them, and I couldn't make myself do anything that had a positive impact for them.) I delivered value and had a good time with my other team for another 4 months, after which I switched jobs when I'd found a step up. On one occasion my old team lead had a meeting with my entire team; he'd ask every one of us questions, except me; I was air. I'm pretty sure he wasn't completely conscious that he did this. He once said he didn't like cocaine, because the few times he tried it, he just wanted to beat people. Drugs bring out the best in people.

My old team lead asked a few times if we could have a one-on-one, since I switched teams, as if there was something to evaluate. I should have told him no and explained that I was not going to enter a meeting room with him again. I just let him schedule a meeting and didn't show. He let go pretty easily.

While I don't feel exactly like this now, this is what I felt: I owe this company nothing. They can take their bad behavior and do with it exactly what they want.

I didn't call out the company on Glassdoor. There were only two rotten apples (a hysterical co-worker and a mildly psychopathic team lead), and dozens of good ones.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#99

Post by aroundtown »

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 road map because of poor design decisions. Some cliques had formed to the determent of the tiny company.

Unfortunately after that exit interview, it became extremely difficult for me to get work in that community. Unknown to me at the time, I made an enemy of my direct boss, who had much deeper connections with that area tech community than I ever could have imagined. I only found out after making friends with someone else who told me they had heard nothing but bad things about me.

It was a lesson learned. After a many years, and a move, it is no longer a problem, but it derailed me for quite a while.

Re: Exit interviews are a trap

#100

Post by Hippocrates »

Mostly agree, though I think some companies do gather and act on feedbacks that they get over and over. I'd give real feedback if it's innocuous and positive:

"It would be cool if we had more social events!" "I liked working with product and I wish there was better collaboration between product and engineering orgs."

But I stay away from criticizing individuals or the company at large. Nothing to gain at this stage.

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