You can say all you want about “be yourself” and “honesty is the best policy” but that doesn’t mean the company across the table from you is going to be a good actor.

You’re placing a lot of faith on the company here, and in my experience people in companies will absolutely do things like what the author listed and thinking that they won’t is just naive.

I’ve personally experienced having a former boss who’s friends with your current boss and what that can do to your reputation.

spoiler alert: even in a situation where there wasn’t a lot of bad blood, it meant a perceptible negative change towards me.

I had a similar situation, but can't go into details. My new boss had developed a blind spot for gossip about me. Lucky me, I guess, but I also think it may have had to do with cultural differences between Europe and the U.S.A.

I feel like author actually considered all your points, but regardless arrives at the same conclusion:

The expected value of an exit interview -for you, the individual- is near-zero or possibly negative.

At the point of your exit interview, you're done with the company. You're no longer part of the team, you're no longer in the family. Your advice and feedback is that of someone who decided to jump ship.

I suppose if you're the absolute top performer at your company and they begged for you to stay, and the VP asked for one last chat to get your advice on how to fix the company... then sure, go for it. Otherwise, just hand over your badge and wish them all the best of luck.

That is short term cynical thinking.

Being able to give honest and constructive feedback is a skill that will grow your career more in the long run.

An exit interview is one of the safest times to practice that

I am not expecting anything to change, but I am going to do my best to make an impact as I leave for the benefit of the business and my coworkers.

I'm being more selfish than that. Of course I wish the company would improve even as I'm leaving, but my _main_ concern is my own psychological wellbeing, and I've found that it hurts me to hold things back for the sake of playing a game.

With respect that's quite naive.

> 1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins

'Leaving a job that doesn't suit you' is the part where you're being true to yourself; whatever you say in the exit interview usually doesn't have a material positive effect on one's own life except possibly the chance to get some closure if things have been really bad - in such situations, however, I would say there is a less than average chance of achieving even that, otherwise maybe it would have been possible to work things out without leaving.

> 2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill

So whose name should I write down when asked for a referee? My own? As the article said, later in your career this is much less of a concern but when starting out and being an unknown quantity, every sympathetic connection is more valuable because you don't have many.

> 3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose her job, but it's not going to do her any favours either

Sure it can, it happens all the time. Dick CEO will either find ways to rationalise the bad feedback, outright ignore it, or else the feedback won't make it that far up the chain as the interviewer values their own job and the CEO is a dick.

> If you get in trouble for telling the truth, that's not a company you need to be at.

Right, but... we're talking about exit interviews; by definition you won't be staying there and derive little to no benefit by being fully open even if things do change. The author of the post wasn't necessarily advocating lying unless there was no other way, just being economical with the truth.

> Also important; don't be a dick. There's a difference between telling the truth to constructive ends, and being a whiny critical negative contrarian.

Sure, that's always good advice, but it doesn't require total honesty; bland empty replies work just as well and don't trigger the kind of fragile egos that so often seem to make their way up the food chain.

Haha, I love these "With all due respect, you're a moron" lines :D I'm kidding, it's fine.

> whatever you say in the exit interview usually doesn't have a material positive effect on one's own life except possibly the chance to get some closure if things have been really bad

The material positive effect is the act of staying honest itself. It is psychologically damaging to do otherwise, or at least for me it was. If holding things back doesn't bother the person, then I have no argument.

> So whose name should I write down when asked for a referee? My own?

In a way. What I was getting at was that _later on in your career_, you will not need references if you're half decent. But yes, I did say that things are different when you're starting out, and you may have to play the game a little more.

Yeah. Big part of this is cultural. US is "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Many other parts of the world value honor and honesty more. I'm from one of those parts. In this case, it's a prisoner's dilemma. Honesty doesn't benefit you, but if everyone's honest, it benefits everyone. Exit interview, it doesn't hurt too much either. It's a safe time to be honest.

Having been on the other side of the table, if your manager is professional -- and most managers are -- it's a numbers game. The odds of an exit interview having an impact are close to zero. It's one person's issue. That doesn't make it invalid -- if you have a 30 minute longer commute to the new office, hate the way we do performance evaluations, or want growth paths into product management, you've got a valid reason to leave.

If five people hate the new location, how we do performance reviews, or don't think they have good internal growth paths, I'll act on that.

Simply saying it was time to move on or to try something new isn’t being dishonest. It’s just not getting into all the dirty laundry. I wouldn’t be as dramatic as the author but I basically agree I’m under no obligation to the company at that point and just want to get out the door.

I’m sure there are exceptions. You don’t want to go back to an office. The company wouldn’t support some initiative you were championing. But for the most part I’ll make it as proforma as I can.

Agreed. There's no need to get into the details, but if they're brought up, I won't skirt them. This isn't so much for the company, as it is for myself. It's not _exactly_ venting, more like feeling good about myself that I didn't do something I disagreed with.

> Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins

Being true to yourself is not the same as saying what you think. I might think that my coworker is ugly, but I don't need to say it. I also might think that salary is too high. Not everything needs to be said.

> Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill

Sure, I'll try that next time when I'm looking for a job and they ask for references. I'm sure it will work out great!

While I agree in spirit with your point that being true to yourself is very important, as somebody who's been consistently honest (over ~15 years or so career) I'm afraid I think you're far too optimistic on that front.

By all means do what I do which is -- be honest so you can sleep at night knowing you tried to do the best for the company -- but don't always expect good outcomes.

That last point is the crux of why things don't always work out because, who decides whether you're being constructive or a whiny, critical, negative contrarian? Might it be the manager you're criticising? :)

I've had the 'it's the way you say it' thrown in my face before despite having said things a number of different ways each getting the same response. Manipulative, gaslighting managers absolutely thrive on those kind of blurry lines.

Often middle managers are playing an entirely different game than you are. They want to look like they're not only essential but the reason things turn out well. Some decide to adopt a meta of bashing down people who call any of that into question (an underling raising concerns might risk them taking credit rather the manager).

I've also had the bad luck of having a truly evil manager in the past who made sure to cause actual psychological harm to me and other ex-colleagues. I am glad you haven't experienced that but they do exist.

I guess the correct test for 'is it me?' is to assess what others think. If many independent employees are experiencing the same thing then it's probably real. If it's only you, then question whether maybe you're the cause.

Yes yes and yes! I hear you, and mostly agree. However! (because of course I have a "however"):

> ... but don't always expect good outcomes

The good outcome is the physchological soundness of not playing the game. Saying things you don't believe in order to do what's expected has a negative pyschological impact on you. If it helps the company too, that's a nice bonus.

In addition, if the last 6 developers all left because they got offers 30% more, maybe that will finally be the push to raise salaries for their current employees that are still there.

Also, most places I have worked will not allow management to give more than the dates you worked, and if they would re-hire you again in a job reference. They are too scared of lawsuits..

Yeah not even that sometimes...dates of employment, title, broad responsibilities (she wasn't a gardner, she was a nuclear physicist). Anything else potentially implies judgment and is open to interpretation/libel. That's how I've been trained in scenarios for references.

I've never heard of eligibility for rehire being given in an external reference. There is no purpose for that other than to get sued. But it may be in the file easily accessible for internal use only.

> Be honest every day, and do your work well. > Also important; don't be a dick. There's a difference between telling the truth to constructive ends, and being a whiny critical negative contrarian

In that spirit of honesty: you really have no idea, and are extrapolating from a sample size of one. What feels good and righteous is not always what is most effective.

> 1) Being true to yourself is worth more than any of his purported wins

This advice is about being fully truthful with others. You can avoid exit interviews as a waste of your time, and still be "true to yourself."

> 2) Be your own merit, and don't rely on others for references or goodwill

You don't get a choice in whether employers use references, and in the he-said-she-said scenario, you lose against the candidate whose references weren't toxic. This is borderline "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" advice.

> If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored.

It actually totally can. HR reports to the CEO, not the board. Bill Gross lasted 43 years at PIMCO, which is longer than your typical HR career. In fact, I'd almost bet "asshole" is a job requirement, based on stories we hear about CEOs. I've never personally encountered such a person professionally, but if you're leaving because they're an asshole, telling them that to someone who can make good on the classic "you'll never work in this town again" threat is doing yourself no favors.

> If you get in trouble for telling the truth, that's not a company you need to be at.

I feel like you don't understand what an exit interview is: it's somebody in HR interviewing you to protect themselves from lawsuits. They want to know if you are leaving due to harassment, or violence, etc. By the time you do an exit interview, you have already decided to leave the company, and unless the reason you are leaving has to do with illegal behavior, it's unreasonable to conflate the interview with HR changing anything.

> 3) If every exit interviewee states that the CEO is a dick, that can't be ignored. She won't lose her job, but it's not going to do her any favours either

Maybe for large enterprises there's a path somewhere regarding this. But in the smallish companies I've worked (350 or less people), the most the HR department doing the "exit interview" would be able to do is to tell the "Head of HR" about it, and then, what would the Head of HR do? She would tell her boss about it... and her boss (the CEO) will laugh it off.

The argument is a little ginned up to get attention, but the core point is real - there’s little upside to meaningful participation.

An HR survey is usually a waste of time that will be a distilled into some pie chart. Genial, politically content free yakking. A sit down with a VP can potentially be a useful thing for you.

If your position is to speak your truth or whatever, it’s likely better to find a reason to blow it off. I’ve done those as the VP guy, and when you let me know the CEO is a tool 6 different years, everything you say has a “crank” filter applied.

To add to this:

4) If something is outside of you or your recipient's control, don't worry about it - complaining about it is at best gossip and at worst agitating

5) Part of your job is to help your managers make good decisions. Even if they made a bad decision, it's their responsibility and your job is over. No need to dwell on it.

A lot of people don't seem to know where the line is between being constructive and petulant. Or they are under the mistaken belief that complaining about things makes them seem intelligent or interesting.

You, my friend, are not cynical enough.

Haha, I actually think I've gone full circle.

“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

I think you've reached enlightenment.