Exit Interview Questions and Survey Template
A 14-question exit survey you can take right now, written for someone who has already resigned. Read the exit interview questions below, copy them, or open the template in the editor.
- 14questions
- About 4 minto complete
- Mid-noticethe send that gets an answer
- For leaversnot for the people staying
Notice period, last day, or a month after: when to send an exit survey
One thing before the date. If nobody has resigned yet, the employee turnover survey asks the people who can still change their minds. For a leaver, the questions are the easy part and the date is the decision, and the published advice contradicts itself on it.
| When you send it | What this moment can tell you | What it cannot |
|---|---|---|
| Before anyone resigns | Whether people are thinking about going, while the answer can still change the outcome. | Anything about a departure. None has happened. |
| The week the notice is agreed | The fullest account of what decided it, with the job still in front of them. How the exit has gone so far, which is the part you can still change. | How the last days go. The handover and the final week are still ahead of them. |
| The last day | The whole story, the exit included. | Attention. Equipment is going back and the answers get shorter. |
| Thirty to sixty days after | A settled answer, with the new job as the comparison. | A reply from most people. You have nothing left to ask with. |
Before anyone resigns, this is the wrong form. Gallup ties a positive exit to a conversation about the job and the future, held in the three months before someone leaves.[4] That conversation is not this one.
The week the notice is agreed is the send that works, before the handover starts. One recruiter guide puts it plainly: not straight after the announcement, and not right before the last day.[5]
The last day is where most exit conversations land, and it is the worst of them. Among 164 people who had left a job voluntarily, the exit interviews that happened at all fell on the last day in 37.3 percent of cases and the day before in 23.9 percent.[1] One widely read template page recommends exactly that day.[6]
A second send, thirty to sixty days later, is worth trying once. A questionnaire completed after someone has gone is a recognised form of the exit interview,[2] and one vendor page argues for it outright.[7] Expect most people not to reply, which is also the point.
The exit survey questions, and what a bad answer to each one tells you
The template is fourteen questions, about four minutes, in the six blocks below. Five spares sit beside them, marked, so copying the lot gives you nineteen.
What decided it
The reason that decided it and everything else that pushed, asked apart: one tick-all list turns eight reasons into eight equal ones.
- Which of these had the biggest part in your decision to leave?This is the only outcome item on the form. Everything else explains it.
- Which of these also played a part?A leaver who ticks six is telling you the decision was overdetermined, which is worse news than one tick.
- Were you looking, or did the offer find you?The third answer is the loudest one on the form, and the rarest.
The months before the resignation
The only part of an exit survey about a window that is still open for the people who stayed.
- When did you first think seriously about leaving?Answers past three months mean the decision was made long before you heard about it.
- Before you resigned, did anyone here talk with you about your future?"Only after I resigned" is a counter-offer, not a conversation.
- I gave signs I was thinking about leaving before I resigned.Agree, next to a "No" on the question before it, is the expensive pair: the signs were given and nobody acted on them.
- Did you tell anyone here what was wrong at the time?The third answer names a broken channel, not a leaver.
The job they had
Four statements about the work, read as a set inside one person.
- The job turned out to be the job I was told about when I joined.Low here is a hiring problem, not a retention one, and it repeats with the replacement.
- I knew what my next step here could be.Low means no visible next step, the reason people give most often for going.
- My workload in the last six months was manageable.Low from several leavers on one team is the team, not the people.
- Decisions that changed my work were explained to me.Low turns up in the same leavers who blame the organization as a whole.
How the leaving was handled
The only part of the exit still in your hands while the survey is being answered.
- The way my leaving has been handled has been fair.The one item you can move this month, and the one most connected to whether they say anything useful.
- The reason I gave in my resignation was the whole reason.Disagree means the resignation letter was the polite version.
In their own words
Both optional, both before the end, so people still have a reason to type and the survey does not finish on a text box.
- What would have had to change here for you to have stayed in the job?The most answered open prompt on an exit form, because it asks for a fix rather than a complaint.
- What should stay exactly as it is for the people still here?Stops a new leader removing the thing that was working.
Coming back
The closing rating, and a real question: a rehire arrives trained, and the answer summarises everything above it.
- If the right job came up here in a year, how likely would you be to apply?A 1 or a 2 from someone who left for a better job means the exit went badly, not the job.
- What would have to be true for you to come back?Answers name a person or a policy more often than a salary.
Swap in: someone leaving inside their first year
In place of the job block for anyone going inside twelve months, where the answer is about the hire and the first month. The new hire orientation survey asks the people who stayed.
- Someone was clearly responsible for me in my first month.Nobody owning the start is the most common first-year answer.
- What did you find out after joining that you wish you had known before?Send this one straight to whoever writes the job advert.
Every line here was written for this page, and the fourteen in the template are already built, so you can make your own survey from them and change any wording before it goes out.
Why the form asks whether the reason given was the whole reason. Reasons given at the exit and reasons given on a later questionnaire agree only weakly: people hold things back, and they shade toward the answer that costs least.[1] A low score there is not a spoiled response. It is the most useful number on the form, because it tells you how much of the rest to believe.
Why nothing under five leavers is a finding
Every page on this subject shows you a chart of exit reasons. Almost none of them tells you how few answers will be sitting behind it.
Do the arithmetic with your own headcount. US quits ran at 1.9 percent a month in July 2026, on 3.1 million quits.[3] At that rate a 200-person employer loses about four people a month and about eleven in a quarter. Split eleven by team, by tenure or by reason and every cell holds two or three people.
So this is two instruments at once. The scale answers are a count that only means something after a year. Treating them like the written ones is how a team of four ends up with a bar chart.
| The counting rule | What it stops |
|---|---|
| Read the written answers one leaver at a time, on the day each arrives. | Saving for a quarterly report the one thing you could have acted on this week. |
| Report no category with fewer than five answers behind it. | A chart of four people, which is four people. |
| Call nothing a trend until four quarters say the same thing. | Announcing a rise in a reason when two more people happened to pick it. |
Where each pattern goes next. A run of answers naming the manager is really a question about the people still reporting to them, and the manager effectiveness survey is how you ask it. A run naming pay cannot be settled by people who have already gone, because they have a new salary to compare with and no stake in yours; the pay equity survey asks the people still deciding whether to stay.
What to put at the top of the exit survey
Who reads this, and what happens to it [NAME], [ROLE], is the only person who opens your answers. Your manager does not. Written answers are grouped into themes rather than passed on in your words, and nothing here goes into a reference. This is confidential rather than anonymous: only a few people leave in any month, so a promise of anonymity would not be true. To report harassment, an unethical request or a broken policy, contact [NAME] at [EMAIL]. That starts a process; this form does not.
The survey does not replace the exit conversation
The evidence here is inconvenient for anyone selling an exit survey, ourselves included. Less than half of leavers say their organization handled the exit well, and the fix is not a better form.[4]
There is no evidence that exit interviews reduce turnover. A systematic review looked for controlled studies showing that they do: it screened 1,560 papers, then 2,220 more on update, and included none.[2] It is scoped to healthcare staff, and an absence of eligible studies is not proof that nothing works. It is still the honest headline, and the turnover reductions quoted elsewhere have no study attached.
What the research does show is a conversation drifting away from the point. In the same 164-person study, people who had an exit interview were asked most about their plans for the future and about their own performance.[1]
| What the exit interview actually covered | Mean agreement, 1 to 5 |
|---|---|
| I was asked about my plans for the future | 4.16 |
| I received feedback about myself and my job performance | 3.58 |
| I was asked again about the reasons for my resignation | 2.97 |
| I was asked my opinion of the employer | 2.91 |
The question you called the meeting for is the one that gets squeezed out of it. A written form asks it every time, in the same words.
And the same authors say a form on its own is worse than the meeting: an exit survey asking for the reasons in writing stops the person starting a conversation.[1] What they measured was relational, not diagnostic: more attachment to the former employer and less willingness to complain, a correlation they are careful not to call a cause.
So the order is the form first, then the meeting. The meeting is where you find out what the first answer meant. In that study only 41 percent of leavers had any exit conversation at all, so the cheap win is not a better questionnaire. It is holding the meeting.
One thing an exit survey cannot see: the people who stayed and are carrying the work. A short employee pulse survey catches that within weeks.
Who sends it, and how it reaches someone who has left
Five decisions this survey needs and no other one does. What every survey needs, a link, a reminder, a closing date, is in the survey research guide.
Hand it to someone the leaver did not report to
Four in five exit interviews are run by the person's own manager.[1] Name an owner outside that reporting line and print the name on the form.
Trigger it on the agreed resignation
Send it in the week the notice is accepted, before an offboarding checklist carries it to the final day.
Ask where to write once the work account closes
Access ends on the last day, and for a remote leaver often before the goodbye call. Without a personal address there is no second send.
Read it before the exit conversation
Bring two of the answers into the meeting and ask about those two.
File it by quarter, with the leaving date and nothing else
You will re-read these a year from now. Names make the file unusable and identify people who trusted you.
Questions people ask about exit surveys
What is the difference between an exit interview and an exit survey?
The survey is a written form, answered alone, with the same questions for every leaver. The exit interview is a conversation, where the follow-up question is the point. They are not alternatives: the form is what makes one quarter comparable with the next.
Should I be honest in my exit interview?
If you are the one leaving: you are weighing a reference, a rehire, a final payment and the people you will meet again, and a systematic review names exactly those reasons for holding back, along with a fear of the conversation and a belief that nothing will come of it.[2] Answer plainly where you can and skip the rest. If you are reading the answers: assume that happened, and design around it.
What do I do if a leaver refuses to answer?
Log it and leave it alone. Someone on their way out owes you nothing, and a chased survey is answered carelessly. A refusal rate that climbs quarter on quarter is itself a reading of how the exits are going.
Can I send the same form to someone who was dismissed?
You can, but never count the two together. A person who chose to go and a person who was let go are answering different questions. Keep involuntary exits in their own list, expect fewer answers, and drop the last question, which reads as sarcasm in that context.
How do I act on the answers without identifying anyone?
Take the theme, not the sentence. A change announced in the week one person left, in the words they used, names them to the whole team. Wait until the same theme has arrived from several leavers, then make the change with no story attached.
Methods and sources
What this template is based on
The send moments and the reading rule come from the exit interview literature and from published labour turnover data.[1][2][3] The questions are written for this page.
Question licensing
No licensed instrument governs exit questions. Nothing here reproduces a published exit form. Copy, edit and translate every line, then freeze it: a changed question is a new trend.
Limits and disclosure
The 164-person study is German, self-reported and mostly under 35. The review reports an absence of eligible healthcare studies, not proof of no effect. The quits rate is one month of one country. Five per group and four quarters are working rules, not validated thresholds.
SuperSurvey makes the editor this template opens in. Everything here is free to use with or without it.
References
- Koenig, C.J., Richter, M. and Isak, I. "Exit interviews as a tool to reduce parting employees' complaints about their former employer and to ensure residual commitment." Management Research Review, 2022. doi:10.1108/MRR-02-2021-0148. Quoted from the authors' accepted manuscript (PDF), which is the version read.
- Webster, J. and Flint, A. "Exit interviews to reduce turnover amongst healthcare professionals." Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2014), CD006620. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, reference month July 2026. bls.gov
- Gallup. "Ways to create a positive exit experience for employees." Gallup Workplace, 11 February 2019. gallup.com
- Robert Half. "Best exit interview questions to ask." Robert Half Insights. roberthalf.com
- Asana. "Exit interview template." Asana Resources. asana.com
- Formbricks. "Exit survey questions." Formbricks blog. formbricks.com
Send it in the week the notice is agreed
Fourteen questions, about four minutes, no name asked. Open it in the editor, change any wording, and get it out before the handover starts.
Use this template