The short answer
Six questions do the work. What finally made you decide it was time to move on? When did you first start thinking about leaving? What would have kept you? What did you like most, and least, about working here? Where are you going, and what is different there? Would you consider coming back? Then close with a 0 to 10 recommend score.
The setup matters more than the questions. Ask after the resignation is accepted, so there is nothing left to negotiate. Have someone neutral ask. That means not the manager, and ideally not the HR partner the person worked with. Open with a confidentiality line that is true. Keep it short. The exit calls we run take a few minutes, and a little longer when there is more to dig into.
The rest of this guide explains why each question is there, the follow-ups for each reason, and the questions to stop asking. It also covers scoring, which is the part that turns exits into a retention plan.
Why exit interviews get the polite answer
The exit is the one moment an employee has nothing to lose. Yet it is when most companies collect their least honest answers. There are three reasons.
The employer is asking. Nobody wants to burn a bridge on the way out. So a question from the company gets a safe reason: a better opportunity, personal reasons, a move. The real reason often goes unsaid. On the calls we run, it is very often the supervisor.
It is a form. People skip written exit forms or fill in half, because nobody feels they owe a form the truth. Few people respond, and what comes back is too thin to act on.
It happens too late, or not at all. By the time the interview is booked, the person has served notice, handed over their work and mentally left. Or they worked in the field, never came back to the office, and nobody called.
The six-question core
"What finally made you decide it was time to move on?" Notice the word finally. It asks for the last straw instead of the whole backstory. The last straw is usually the honest answer. Follow up once: was there anything else that played a part?
"When did you first start thinking about leaving?" This question is underrated. If the answer is month three, your problem is onboarding or the manager. If it is right after the appraisal, it is pay or growth. The timing points to the fix.
"What would have kept you?" Avoid "could we have done anything?", which invites a polite no. Ask for the specific thing. It is often smaller than a counter-offer.
"What did you like most about working here? And least?" Ask both, in that order. What they liked most is your employer brand in the leaver's own words. What they liked least shows clear patterns quickly across a group of leavers.
"Where are you going, and what is different there?" The next employer and industry tell you who you are losing people to. What is different tells you the gap. It might be the title, the pay band, the hybrid policy, or a manager they already know.
"If things changed, would you consider coming back some day?" The answer tells you how you are doing on retention, and who you might rehire. A yes with conditions is a name for your list of people to bring back later.
Close: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend working here to a friend?" Always ask it last, never first.
Follow-up questions by reason
One good follow-up for each reason gets you the detail you need to act on it.
- Manager: Was it the day-to-day interactions, or how feedback and growth conversations were handled?
- Growth: Was there a specific moment you realized the path up was not there?
- Pay: Was the gap something a fair correction could have closed, or had it gone past money?
- Workload or hours: Did that change recently, or was it always like this?
- Culture: Was there a moment that made you feel this was not the place for you?
- Relocation or personal: Would a different setup have made staying possible? For example, remote work, a transfer or a change of shift?
Questions to stop asking
"Was there anything we could have done?" It sounds open, but it is a yes-or-no question, and the answer is no. Ask what would have kept them instead.
"Rate your manager from 1 to 5." People whose manager is the reason they are leaving will still give a 3. Ask what the manager did well and what they would change.
"Did you feel valued?" It is a leading question, and hard to answer honestly on the way out.
Anything that reads a list of reasons aloud. People pick the last option they heard, or the least dramatic one. Ask open questions, and sort the answers into your categories afterward.
How to score exit interviews so they add up
A hundred honest conversations are useless if all you have is a hundred transcripts. Score each one into the same fields.
Reasons for leaving: up to three per person, ranked. Put them all into one set of categories, so manager pressure at one branch and manager pressure at another count as the same thing. Tag each reason as a push factor, a pull factor or a stay factor. Also tag whether you could have controlled it. Manager, growth, pay and hours are within your control. Moving away and personal reasons mostly are not.
Satisfaction ratings across pay, manager, growth, workload and culture. What they liked most and least. Next employer and industry. Whether they would come back. The recommend score, added up into eNPS.
Red flags: if someone raises harassment, abuse, coercion or serious misconduct without being asked, flag it at once. Give it a severity level and a short summary, and send it to someone senior the same day. Wanting to leave is not a red flag. Ordinary unhappiness is not a red flag either.
Then compare the reason HR recorded with what the person actually said. The gap between the two is the most useful chart in the whole program. It shows the size of the problem you did not know you had.
Who should run the exit interview, and when
Someone neutral. When the company itself asks, people protect the bridge. A third party on the phone gets a different conversation. Open with a confidentiality line that is true: what you say goes to HR leadership, and never to your manager with your name on it.
Call after the resignation is accepted and before the person has mentally left. For most people, that is while they work out their notice. Calling after the last working day also works. For people who have already gone, it is the only option. People are often more honest once their final pay has been settled.
Ask in their own language. Honest answers should not depend on speaking the head-office language. The frontline employees you most need to hear from are the least likely to fill in a form in English.
Reaching people who have already left
Most missed exit interviews happen because nobody reached the person, and you can fix that. Make three call attempts, a few hours apart, within working hours. When someone says "call me tomorrow at four", book that call so it does not end as a hang-up. If calls do not connect, send a short WhatsApp message. Offer to finish the conversation in chat, book a time, or just leave a score. Then stop politely.
Track the result of every attempt, so you know where each exit stands. If a call never got past the opening, never file it as a completed interview.
AI exit interviews: how they work
An AI counselor phones each departing employee. It opens in English and asks which language they prefer. It reads the confidentiality line and runs the script above, with follow-ups when an answer is thin. The call is recorded and transcribed. A second, more accurate transcription pass makes sure the analysis reads what was actually said.
Every call is scored the same way. You get ranked reasons in one set of categories, satisfaction, eNPS, what they liked and disliked most, next employer, whether they would come back, and red flags. HR gets a PDF for each employee with the transcript and recording. HR also gets a company-wide report. It splits the exits you could have prevented from the ones you could not, and shows the gap between the reasons HR recorded and the real ones. It also includes a retention action plan, with quick moves for next quarter and bigger fixes ranked by how many exits each would prevent.
It works where HR calls do not because the voice is neutral. People end the call feeling heard instead of processed. They say things they would never have put on a form. That is what Goodfit exit interviews are built to do, even for companies with hundreds of exits a month.
An exit interview template
Ask in this order. Everything after the confidentiality line is a question. Never read anything out as a list.
- Opening: Thanks for taking a few minutes. Everything you share is confidential. It goes to HR leadership only, and never to your manager with your name on it.
- 1. What finally made you decide it was time to move on? Was there anything else that played a part?
- 2. When did you first start thinking about leaving?
- 3. What would have kept you?
- 4. What did you like most about working here? And least?
- 5. Where are you going, and what is different there?
- 6. If things changed, would you consider coming back some day?
- Close: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend working here to a friend? Anything else you want to add?
Frequently asked questions
What are the best exit interview questions?
Ask what finally made them decide to move on, and when they first started thinking about leaving. Ask what would have kept them, and what they liked most and least. Ask where they are going, what is different there, and whether they would consider coming back. Close with a 0 to 10 recommend score. Ask open questions, after the resignation is accepted, with someone neutral asking.
How many questions should an exit interview have?
Six core questions, one follow-up per answer, and a closing recommend score. On a phone call, that takes a few minutes. Longer scripts mean fewer people finish, and they do not add much.
Should exit interviews be anonymous?
They should be confidential, but fully anonymous is a mistake. Open by saying that what the person shares goes to HR leadership only. Say it never goes to their manager with their name on it, and mean it. Full anonymity means you cannot act on red flags such as harassment. It also stops you linking reasons to teams and managers, which is the whole point.
When should an exit interview happen?
After the resignation is accepted, so there is nothing left to negotiate. Ideally while they work out their notice, while the person is still easy to reach. Calling after the final pay is settled also works, and sometimes gets a more honest answer. Call field and frontline staff who never return to an office. Do not just email them a form.
Who should conduct the exit interview?
Someone neutral. Not the manager, who is often the reason. Ideally not the HR partner the person worked with either. A third party on the phone, in the employee's own language, gets the honest reason. AI exit interviews exist because it is hard to staff that neutral third party when you lose many people each month.
What is an AI exit interview?
It is a phone call from an AI counselor to someone who is leaving, in the language they choose. It runs a set script with follow-up questions, and records and transcribes the call. Then it scores the call: ranked reasons for leaving, satisfaction ratings, eNPS, next employer, whether they would come back, and red flags. The results add up into a report for each employee and a retention plan for the whole company.
How do you analyze exit interview data?
Score every interview into the same fields. Record up to three ranked reasons in one set of categories, each tagged push, pull or stay, and controllable or not. Add satisfaction by area, eNPS, next employer, whether they would come back, and red flags. Then split the results by business unit, region, time in the job, grade and manager. Compare the reason found on the call with the reason HR recorded. Finally, separate exits you could have prevented from those you could not, to decide where your retention budget goes.