What is Exit Interview?

An exit interview is the conversation, or sometimes just a survey, that HR runs when you leave, asking why you are going and what the company could do better. Understand its purpose honestly before you sit down: it exists to surface patterns for the organization, and it will rarely change anything for you personally, since the decisions about your role, your manager, and your pay are already made. That framing sets the strategy. Be professional, factual, and selectively candid. Feedback about processes, workload, systems, and structure is safer and more useful than commentary about named individuals, and anything you say may be paraphrased later to the exact people it concerns, in an industry smaller than it looks. Do not litigate old grievances hoping for late repair, and do not spend a reference on the satisfaction of a farewell speech. Say the true things you would be comfortable seeing forwarded verbatim, keep the rest for friends, and walk out as someone they would rehire, because that version of you keeps paying afterward.