How to Conduct Exit Interviews
Posted October 17th, 2016
Exit interviews are a fairly common practice these days. Many companies use them because they can gain a lot of useful information from them. But for these types of interviews to be most effective, you have to know the best way to go about doing them. Here are a few things to keep in mind about exit interviews.
1. Skilled interviewer
Exit interviews are unique. They require the skills of a good detective to probe and follow leads to their conclusion.
The person doing these types of interviews should have specialized training for doing an exit interview. The interviewer needs to know what kinds of questions to ask and how to dig deeper, to explore an employee’s answers to get at the information that can really be of use to the company.
Also, to enhance the effectiveness of the interview, the interviewer should not be an employee of the company, because this might influence the way the exiting employee answers the questions.
2. Wait
Some companies conduct the interview while the employee is still at the business, during his or her final days. But this isn’t really the best time to hold an exit interview. The employee is distracted by many different things, all pulling him in different directions. He is trying to tie things up with his work projects. He is saying his good-byes to colleagues. He is trying to plan ahead for the transition to another job. He is going through a range of different emotions. With all of this going on, he is unlikely to give the thoughtful and insightful answers the company is looking for.
That is why, although it may be a little more inconvenient, the company should wait until a a few weeks after the person has left the job to conduct the interview.
3. Secrecy
If the person is going to answer the questions honestly, he or she needs to know that there will be no negative repercussions to his answers. That is why the company needs to guarantee that all answers at the interview will be strictly confidential.
4. Consistency
If the information you get from the interviews is to be reliable, you need to be consistent in the way you conduct the interviews with each person. That is, you need to ask everyone the same questions so that you can more validly compare answers. And you should interview everyone who leaves the company.
5. Useful information
You need to get information that will help you to make positive changes at the company. Your questions need to help you do that. So you would be asking the person things like what he liked or didn’t like about his job. Was he given the resources he needed to do his job well? Were the expectations of the job clear? Was he given enough feedback? What did he think about how the company was managed?
If your technology company is looking for high quality workers who can make an impact, Bayside Solutions can help you. We specialize in technology-related fields, and so we know what to look for and how to evaluate technology workers. Give Bayside a call today.
