The Best Exit Interview Questions to Ask: Wild.Codes Guide on Your Way to Meaningful Employment Changes

The IT sector has significantly transformed recent years. In the context of employment, technicians started with unpleasant statistics in 2021 – workers’ retention in IT was poor, with 7 from 10 devs quitting their positions in a year of programming in the company (these data entries are published in the Security Magazine’s article by the end of 2021).

Nevertheless, 2023-2024 became the positively pivotal moment for IT recruitment. Most employers became more focused on technicians’ retention strategies and work with the main reasons of workers’ leave – burnout & lack of lead’s support (according to the Bureau of Labor, the US Labor Statistics report).

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This way, the job opening rates, separations, and hire statistics decreased by August, 2024. This tendency can be seen on the chart presented in the latest US DoL report. Nevertheless, devs’ leaves are unpredictable in most cases. But the talent lead’s and CTO’s task is to handle a proper exit interview with the clear goal – provide a better experience for next hires.

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Six Types of Exit Interview Questions to Consider

Divide all the exit interview questions into six groups:

1. Development;
2. Leadership;
3. Team;
4. General;
5. Compensation;
6. Enablement.

Each category covers issues and challenges your leaving worker faced during the programming/management/reporting or other processes. Try to understand all the weak spots to fix them and make the following hires successful.

Examples of General Questions for Exit Interviews

• What work processes do you like in the company?
• What problems did you face?
• What improvements do you recommend for the company?
• Rate your working experience from 1 to 10.

Examples of Development Questions for Exit Interviews

• Are investments in development cycles enough for the company?
• Are you satisfied with the feedback of the manager/CTO/lead in the context of development?
• Did you have career opportunities in the context of development?

Examples of Leadership Questions for Exit Interviews

• Do workers keep track of the company’s mission and goals?
• Are the company’s objectives clear and accessible to reach?
• Is it enough of corporate motivation?
• Do you have any ideas for leadership improvements in the company?

Examples of Team Questions for Exit Interviews

• Did you feel like a good team player?
• Are you satisfied with the teamwork in the company?
• Does a team welcome any formats of communication, department interaction, and collaboration between developers?
• Was it comfortable to get feedback from leaders/managers /other IT specialists in the team?
• Did you face issues related to teamwork?
• Describe communication problems if you had any.

Examples of Compensation Questions for Exit Interviews

• Was your role and work performance compensated well in the company?
• Name weak spots of the compensation approach compared to other companies you would like to join.
• Can you list benefits you could not access in the company?
• Do you leave the company because of a lack of financial motivation?

Examples of Enablement Questions for Exit Interviews

• Did you have enough resources to work and demonstrate sufficient final results?
• Did you mention the poor division of roles, responsibilities, and tasks in the company?
• Can you recommend any solutions to fix the enablement issues?
• What improvements in your role and dev’s backgrounds & responsibilities can convince you not to leave your work in the company?

To Summarize

Finally, we recommend to ask your leaving specialists to answer honestly more global questions like prompts of searching for a new job, life-work balance issues, challenges concerning teamwork, disputes or conflicts with other IT experts, etc.

Sometimes, people decide to leave their beloved work because of personal pitfalls (family relations, health problems, burnout, desire for new professional directions or niches, etc.). The best leaders make conclusions and change hiring strategies.

And Wild.Codes believes you are an excellent technical lead who will handle exit interviews to enhance your employees’ experience of hiring and working. Retain your skillful devs with the templated questions listed above and search for new technicians via our AI-driven talent hunting tool!