Templates / Exit interview survey
Team · Adaptive interview template
Exit interview survey template
A live exit interview with HR gets you the diplomatic version. The departing employee has a reference to protect and a network to keep, so "I got a great opportunity elsewhere" stands in for whatever actually pushed them out. The real reason walks out the door with them.
This template runs the exit interview as an anonymous, written conversation instead. Because no name, email, or IP is stored, people say the thing they would never say across a desk: that the manager was the problem, that the promised growth never came, that they had been looking for six months. A structured question anchors the departure, then the AI interviewer probes the timeline, the trigger, and what would have kept them. You get the candor of an anonymous survey with the depth of an interview.
When to use it
- Sent to departing employees during their notice period or after their last day
- As a standing offboarding step for every voluntary resignation
- When regretted attrition is rising and the live interviews all sound the same
- After a specific team loses several people and you need the unfiltered why
Running it well
- Keep it anonymous and say so up front. The entire value of an exit interview survey over a live one is that no name, email, or IP is stored, which is what unlocks the truth.
- Do not require it as a condition of final pay or a reference. Coerced candor is not candor, and skip is always allowed for a reason.
- Read the "Something else" and manager transcripts first. That is where the patterns you most need to see, and most want to avoid, tend to cluster.
- Watch for timing signals. When people started looking and what finally decided it tell you whether you had a chance to intervene and missed it.
The questions, and why they're shaped this way
These are the anchor questions. You can edit, reorder, or add to them; the AI interviewer handles the depth between them.
What best describes why you're leaving?
The category routes the interview rather than settling it. Someone who picks "Manager" and someone who picks "Career growth" need different questions, and the neutral "Something else" catches the reasons the list forgot.
What could we have done differently to keep you?
Asked after the category is on the table, this becomes specific. It also surfaces the timeline: people often reveal when they started looking and what the final straw was, which the checkbox never captures.
What the interviewer asks next
Follow-ups aren't scripted. The AI reads each answer and probes what a researcher would. Depending on what a respondent says, it might ask:
"You pointed to career growth. Was there a specific moment you realized the path here had stalled?"
"You mentioned your manager. Without naming names, what did that relationship make hard day to day?"
"You said a better opportunity. What does the new role offer that this one could not?"
Live demo
Play the exit interview survey interview
This is the real interviewer, not a recording. Answer as yourself and watch the follow-ups adapt to what you write.
Prefer a full window? Open the demo.
Common questions
- Why not just do a live exit interview?
- Live interviews get the diplomatic version, because the person is protecting a reference and a relationship. An anonymous written interview removes that pressure, and the AI still probes for the timeline and the real trigger.
- Is it really anonymous?
- By default yes: no name, email, or IP is stored with answers. Nothing in the results connects a transcript back to the individual, which is what makes people willing to name the real reason.
- When should we send it?
- During the notice period or shortly after the last day, while the experience is fresh but the immediate pressure of resigning has passed. Making it a standing offboarding step keeps the data comparable over time.
- What do the results look like?
- The reason breakdown, themes with supporting quotes and counts, full anonymous transcripts, and a plain-language question box for asking things like "what did people who left for a manager reason say specifically?"
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