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Exit Interview: What to Say and What to Leave Out

This is the one conversation at work with nothing left to gain and something still to lose. The decision is already made, so nothing you say here can improve the job — but it can still reach your reference, whether you’re marked as somebody to rehire, and anything still owed to you. So you get five answers written to be said aloud under pressure, the things to leave out, the line for the moment they push for a name, and the five items worth settling in writing before you walk in. It never invents a number, it won’t tell you what your employer’s process is, and it isn’t legal advice.

Sample exit interview prep

Generated for: Operations coordinator, 3 years, resigned for a role at a supplier, real reason is the manager, carry-over holiday still owed

Why are you leaving? — I wasn’t looking, but the role at [the new employer] came up and it’s a step into [the specific thing it adds] that I couldn’t build here in the same timeframe. Three years here has been good to me and the timing is the only awkward part of it.

The real one is built on why you are actually leaving, what is still unresolved, and which of the four things you can still lose matters most to you. The first one is free — no card. After that, $9.99 for a single credit or $49.99 for ten.

First one is free — no card needed.

Credits

— credits available

Your Job Title *

Time in Role — or With This Employer (optional)

What Kind of Exit This Is *

These are not the same conversation and the branch changes what it is. A grievance or an agreement still openmeans this is not a debrief at all — it is a record made while a process is running, and it can be read next to that process. Made redundant has no reason-for-leaving to explain, so almost none of the usual advice applies. And money still owed is the one version where you still have an unresolved dependency on the people in the room, which is worth settling before you sit down rather than inside the meeting.

What This Conversation Has To Achieve *

This decides which section gets written. There is no “tell me what they’ll write down” option on purpose: whether the notes are attributed, whether your manager sees them and whether any of it reaches a reference differ at every employer, and a confident guess is exactly what talks people into the sentence they can’t take back. Say as little as I canis a legitimate answer and more people should pick it — but a short answer only works if it was prepared, because an unprepared one sounds like withholding.

Why You’re Leaving, What’s Unresolved — and What to Keep Out of the Room (optional)

Four things carry this box. The real reason, which is not necessarily the one you plan to give — we need it to work out what to keep out, and nothing you type here is written into anything. What is still unresolved: final pay, holiday, notice, commission, anything that pays out after your last day. We never invent a number or an entitlement, so anything you don’t supply comes back as a bracketed placeholder telling you where to get the real one. Who will be asked about you, because the two or three people who get phoned matter more than the file. And what you have already decided not to discuss— that decision, made in advance, is the whole technique. Refer to people by role, no names.

1 credit per generation • Powered by GPT-4o • Takes ~15 seconds

Also explore:

Resignation Letter →“Why Are You Leaving?” →Reference Request →