What questions should you ask in an exit interview?

Cover the four areas that most often explain departures: reasons for leaving, the relationship with the direct manager, satisfaction with culture, and compensation against market. Add one question on what the company could do better and one open-ended field for anything else. Limit the total to 10-15 questions. Rating scales aggregate cleanly across many responses, while the open-ended fields give you the detail that explains the scores.

How do you make exit interviews confidential?

State in both the invitation and the introduction that responses are anonymous and only aggregated results reach managers, then use confidential response collection that strips identifying metadata from individual replies. Avoid asking for name, ID, or department in the survey itself; if you need to segment, hold that linkage in your HR system rather than the form. When employees see that no individual result is ever shared, trust in the process builds over time.

Who should conduct an exit interview survey?

The HR team should send and own the results, which removes the awkwardness of a departing employee feeding back directly to their own manager. For a follow-up conversation, a neutral HR business partner or generalist runs the call rather than the direct manager. In smaller organizations where HR and management overlap, a line in the invitation confirming the manager will not see individual responses goes a long way toward candor.

When should you send an exit interview survey?

Send it as soon as the resignation is confirmed, with a completion window that closes two days before the last day, so the employee is still engaged and can ask questions if anything is unclear. Sending after departure is the most common mistake: the link hits a personal inbox, focus has shifted, and response rates fall. If a same-day exit prevents notice, send within 24 hours and trim the survey to five questions.

How do you use exit interview data to reduce turnover?

Aggregate responses by department, tenure, and manager across at least two quarters before drawing conclusions, since one survey is a data point and a pattern across 10 or more is a signal. Look for the two or three themes that recur, then bring each to leadership with a proposed action. Pair the findings with your ongoing employee feedback program to check whether the same issues surface among current staff. For the broader set of HR tools, the human resources page covers surveys teams use across the employee lifecycle.

Exit Interview Survey Templates (6 Surveys)

Home

Survey templates

Exit interview survey templates

Get valuable insights from departing employees to uncover areas for improvement.

Back to all templates

Our templates

Exit interview survey templates

Employee Engagement Survey Template

Used 339,000+ times

Use our free employee engagement survey template with expert-written questions, scales, and tips to improve engagement fast. Used 339,000+ times.

Exit Survey Template

Used 16,000+ times

Enhance retention with our Employee Exit Survey Template, used over 16,000 times for valuable insights and improved workplace satisfaction.

Employment Survey Template

Used 7,000+ times

Explore workforce trends with our Employment Survey Template, used over 7,000 times to improve hiring, retention, and satisfaction. Gather insights now!

CNBC x Surveymonkey Workforce Survey Template

Used 2,000+ times

Get a better understanding of the current state of your workforce with the same index that CNBC and SurveyMonkey use to measure sentiment among workers nationwide. Our CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workforce Survey examines five key factors in job satisfaction to help HR leaders take a real-time pulse of their company.

Exit Interview Survey Template

Use this employee exit survey to streamline your process. Easily collect and manage responses with this customizable template.

Employee Satisfaction Survey Template

Measure employee satisfaction and identify areas for improvement using this Employee Satisfaction Survey Template from SurveyMonkey.

Exit interview survey templates at a glance

Stat	Figure
Total exit interview templates	6
Most-used template	Employee satisfaction survey
Short survey completion rate (1-10 questions)	99.6%
Medium survey completion rate (11-20 questions)	99.1%
Long survey completion rate (21+ questions)	89.4%
Average questions per survey	13.0

What are exit interview surveys?

A resignation lands, and you have a narrow window to learn something useful before the person is gone. An exit interview survey collects structured feedback from departing employees, so you can see why people leave and act to reduce turnover. These six templates give HR teams a consistent way to capture that feedback before the last day, covering reasons for leaving, manager effectiveness, culture, compensation, and workload.

Anonymity is what makes the data honest. Turn on confidential response collection, state it plainly in the invitation, and departing employees answer candidly instead of safely. The pre-built question sets already cover the standard exit topics, and the AI-powered builder lets you customize or extend them without starting from scratch. You deliver the survey by email link, a URL embedded in your HR system, or a QR code for an in-person session.

Exit surveys run 13.0 questions on average and complete at a 98.3% overall rate, which signals high respondent intent. Short surveys of 1-10 questions finish at 99.6%, and even 21 or more questions hold 89.4%. Results feed dashboards where you filter by department or tenure to spot patterns across teams rather than reading one departure at a time.

How to create an exit interview survey

Choose one of the six templates on this page, or start from the employee exit survey template.
Confirm the core questions cover reasons for leaving, the manager relationship, culture fit, and compensation, the four areas that most often drive turnover.
Turn on anonymous responses and add an explicit note in the introduction that answers are confidential.
Keep it to 10-15 questions, since shorter surveys leave more room for the open-ended follow-up that explains the scores.
Email the link at least 48 hours before the last day so the employee completes it while still engaged.
Review results in the dashboard, filter by team or tenure, and share aggregated trends with leadership each quarter.

When to use exit interview surveys

When a resignation comes in: Trigger the survey as soon as you receive notice, which leaves time for a follow-up conversation if the data warrants one.
When turnover spikes in a department: Use the results to diagnose whether the pattern ties to a manager, a role type, or a working condition, rather than guessing.
During remote offboarding: For distributed teams, a digital survey replaces or supplements the in-person conversation so every departing employee is heard.
As part of a structured offboarding process: Pair the survey with offboarding checklists to document the separation and support compliance.
When building a retention strategy: Aggregate exit data across two or more quarters to surface the top turnover drivers that anchor a credible retention program.

Who runs exit interview surveys

HR generalists and managers: They own offboarding, send the survey, and review responses to flag issues for leadership.
HR business partners: They connect exit data to specific business units, helping managers see whether a turnover pattern is local or org-wide.
VPs of people and chief people officers: They use aggregated trends to report at the board level and tie turnover data to engagement and compensation strategy.
Small business owners handling their own HR: They want a ready-made template that covers the standard topics without building one from scratch.

Tips for creating an exit interview survey

Send before the last day: Response rates are highest two to three days out, since a link sent after departure lands in a personal inbox and competes with new-job onboarding.
Assure anonymity explicitly: State in the introduction that individual responses stay confidential and only aggregated results reach managers, because trust drives more useful answers.
Keep the count manageable: Short surveys complete at 99.6% and the 13-question average holds a 98.3% overall rate, so add open-ended questions only where the "why" matters most.
Balance closed and open questions: Rating scales tell you the score; an open text field on the top turnover driver tells you the reason behind it.
Build a review loop: Exit feedback filed without a quarterly review changes nothing, so schedule a recurring meeting where HR presents the patterns and proposed actions.

Frequently asked questions about exit interview surveys

What questions should you ask in an exit interview?
Cover the four areas that most often explain departures: reasons for leaving, the relationship with the direct manager, satisfaction with culture, and compensation against market. Add one question on what the company could do better and one open-ended field for anything else. Limit the total to 10-15 questions. Rating scales aggregate cleanly across many responses, while the open-ended fields give you the detail that explains the scores.
How do you make exit interviews confidential?
State in both the invitation and the introduction that responses are anonymous and only aggregated results reach managers, then use confidential response collection that strips identifying metadata from individual replies. Avoid asking for name, ID, or department in the survey itself; if you need to segment, hold that linkage in your HR system rather than the form. When employees see that no individual result is ever shared, trust in the process builds over time.
Who should conduct an exit interview survey?
The HR team should send and own the results, which removes the awkwardness of a departing employee feeding back directly to their own manager. For a follow-up conversation, a neutral HR business partner or generalist runs the call rather than the direct manager. In smaller organizations where HR and management overlap, a line in the invitation confirming the manager will not see individual responses goes a long way toward candor.
When should you send an exit interview survey?
Send it as soon as the resignation is confirmed, with a completion window that closes two days before the last day, so the employee is still engaged and can ask questions if anything is unclear. Sending after departure is the most common mistake: the link hits a personal inbox, focus has shifted, and response rates fall. If a same-day exit prevents notice, send within 24 hours and trim the survey to five questions.
How do you use exit interview data to reduce turnover?
Aggregate responses by department, tenure, and manager across at least two quarters before drawing conclusions, since one survey is a data point and a pattern across 10 or more is a signal. Look for the two or three themes that recur, then bring each to leadership with a proposed action. Pair the findings with your ongoing employee feedback program to check whether the same issues surface among current staff. For the broader set of HR tools, the human resources page covers surveys teams use across the employee lifecycle.

Related categories

Employee feedback surveys · Employee engagement surveys · Performance management surveys · Candidate experience surveys · Employee onboarding surveys