Updated:
Get Form Now
An exit interview template is a form for feedback from departing employees. It captures the reason for leaving, ratings of pay, training and management, and ideas for change. Many employers ask every departing employee to complete one, especially when team turnover rises.
This page gives you the fillable exit interview form, a field-by-field guide to completing it, sample exit interview questions grouped by topic, and practical advice for running the meeting itself.
An exit interview form includes the employee's details, the job history, the reason for leaving, ratings of the workplace and space for open comments. The format follows the order of a typical exit conversation, so the interviewer and the employee can walk through it together from top to bottom.
Our template is organized into these parts:
The checkbox and rating format makes answers easy to compare across many departures. The comment lines leave room for the reasons a checkbox cannot capture.
To fill out the exit interview form, enter the date and your details, mark your reason for leaving, rate your job, add comments and sign. The employee completes every part except the small block under the signature, which belongs to the company's representative.
You can complete the form on a computer with an online PDF editor, or print it and fill it out by hand. Answer honestly and tactfully: specific, calm feedback helps the company and keeps the relationship on good terms.
If you are resigning, you can select from over ten explanations. They include relocation to another city, family needs, and dissatisfaction with coworkers or the work itself. Mark the boxes that suit your case.
If you were laid off, you may pick one of three options. They all describe layoffs for reasons outside your control: lack of work, an abolished position, or lack of funds.
If you are retiring, there are also three options: voluntary retirement, regular retirement, or disability retirement.
The first chart asks you to rate key parts of the job as “excellent”, “good”, “fair” or “poor.”
The next chart asks how satisfied or dissatisfied you were with other parts of the job:
The following page gives you empty lines for comments. Use them for anything the charts did not cover.
Specific comments are the most useful part of the form. Compare a vague comment with a specific comment:
Vague: "Management could be better."
Specific: "Weekly priorities changed without notice, so our team often redid finished work. A short planning meeting at the start of each week would have helped."
The specific version names the problem, shows its effect and suggests a fix, which gives the employer something to act on.
An exit interview questions template is a set of open questions that the interviewer asks after reviewing the completed form. The form gives the scores; the questions draw out the reasons behind them. Pick the questions that fit your workplace, and share them ahead of time so the employee can prepare.
Open questions like these invite stories. A story tells the employer far more than a yes or no answer does.
The exit interview form serves the departing employee and the employer in different ways. It usually comes into play after an employee has resigned and told their manager, and before the employee leaves.
| Your role | How to use the form | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Employee | Explain your reasons for going, share concerns, and suggest changes to the workplace. | A calm, clear way to give constructive feedback before your last day. |
| Employer or HR | Add the form to your resignation process and ask each departing team member to fill it out honestly. | Insight into turnover, management, and culture that helps you improve operations and spot hidden issues. |
| Interviewer | Read the completed form before the meeting and use it to choose follow-up questions. | A focused conversation that starts from the employee's own answers. |
Exit interviews matter because departing employees often speak more openly than current staff, and their answers show why people leave. Read together, many exit forms point to the problems worth fixing first.
A single exit interview shows how a person felt about the job. A stack of completed forms, reviewed together on a regular schedule and grouped by team, role and theme, shows how the workplace looks from the outside. That wider view is where the form pays off: it turns individual departures into a list of problems the company can fix for the people who stay.
To conduct an exit interview, meet the employee in a private, quiet place, review their completed form, ask open questions, listen without arguing, and act on what you learn. These habits keep the conversation honest and useful:
The most common exit interview mistakes are rushing the meeting, arguing with the feedback, and never reading the forms again. Each of these keeps a departing team member from speaking openly or wastes what they said:
An exit interview form differs from other employee exit forms because it collects opinions about the job, not tasks or notice. Departing employees often see several documents before they leave, and each does a different job:
| Document | What it does | Who completes it |
|---|---|---|
| Exit interview form | Collects reasons for leaving, ratings and suggestions, then guides a meeting. | The departing employee, with the interviewer |
| Exit survey | Asks similar questions without a meeting, often online and anonymous. | The departing employee |
| Resignation letter | Gives notice that the employee is leaving and when. | The employee |
| Offboarding checklist | Tracks returned equipment, closed accounts and final tasks. | HR, IT and the manager |
Many employers use more than a single document. A common sequence is the resignation letter first, then the exit interview form and meeting, and the offboarding checklist just before departure. An exit survey can replace the meeting when the team is large or the employee prefers to answer privately.
Use the exit interview form when you want to understand why someone is leaving. Use a checklist when you need to make sure nothing is left undone.
Be honest, specific, and calm. Name what worked well and what did not, and give an example for each point. Offer a few ideas for improvement, and leave out personal attacks so your feedback stays easy to act on.
A little preparation keeps the meeting calm and useful:
Keep your tone friendly, even when the feedback is hard to hear.
Plan for about 30 to 60 minutes. Filling out the form takes less time, so you can finish it before the meeting and use the meeting to talk through what you wrote.
An HR team member or a manager above the employee's own supervisor usually leads it. A neutral interviewer makes it easier for the employee to speak openly about their direct manager.
The template is a fillable PDF that you can complete online in the PDF editor and then download or print. If your company prefers a printed copy, print the blank form and fill it out by hand.
The questions about reasons for leaving, ratings and suggestions work for employers anywhere, including New Zealand. The personal details section asks for a US Social Security Number, so replace that field with the identifier your company uses.
The company usually reviews the feedback, compares it with earlier exit interviews, and looks for patterns. Keep a copy of your signed form for your own records.
General information, not legal or tax advice.
