Google Forms Exit Interview Template: 27 Questions + Setup Guide

Exit interviews can be awkward when they happen too late, rely on memory, or turn into an unstructured conversation with no clear record.

A simple Google Forms exit interview form gives departing employees a calmer way to share feedback and gives HR a consistent place to review patterns over time. It is quick to set up, easy to share, and especially useful when you want answers organized in Google Sheets without adding another HR tool.

The challenge is not creating the form. The challenge is asking questions that feel respectful, specific, and useful enough to help the company improve.

This guide gives you a practical Google Forms exit interview template, 27 copy-paste questions, and a setup you can adapt for small teams, HR departments, schools, nonprofits, and growing companies.

One important detail: Google Forms works best for collecting structured feedback, not for replacing sensitive HR conversations, legal advice, or formal employee relations processes.

That means it is a strong fit when you want a repeatable offboarding survey and a simple response record. If the departure involves a serious complaint, investigation, protected leave, harassment concern, or legal risk, use your official HR process and bring in the right internal support.

When Google Forms Is a Good Choice for Exit Interviews

Google Forms is a strong option when you want:

• quick setup
• responses stored in Google Sheets
• one shareable link for departing employees
• consistent questions for every exit interview
• a lightweight way to compare feedback over time
• a form your HR or operations team can update without special software

It is especially useful for:

• small businesses
• startups
• nonprofits
• schools
• distributed teams
• teams that do not run enough exits to justify a dedicated survey platform
• HR teams that want a simple written record before a live exit conversation

If you need anonymous benchmarking, advanced sentiment analysis, case management, or strict employee relations workflows, Google Forms will usually feel too limited. But for straightforward exit feedback, it is often enough.

What a Good Exit Interview Form Should Actually Do

A strong exit interview form does five things well:

1. It explains how the feedback will be used.
2. It gives the employee room to be honest without making every question feel heavy.
3. It separates facts from opinions.
4. It asks about patterns the company can improve.
5. It captures follow-up needs before the employee leaves.

The best exit interview form is not the longest one. It is the shortest form that helps HR understand why someone is leaving, what worked, what did not work, and whether anything needs follow-up.

Google Forms Exit Interview Template (Quick Version)

If you want the fastest possible setup, use this structure:

1. Exit interview form title and short privacy note
2. Employee name
3. Role or department
4. Last working day
5. Primary reason for leaving
6. Overall experience rating
7. Manager support rating
8. Workload and role fit question
9. Compensation or growth feedback
10. What should the company improve?
11. Would you recommend this workplace?
12. Follow-up permission
13. Confirmation message with next step

That is enough for most:

• voluntary resignations
• internship endings
• contract completions
• seasonal staff departures
• role transitions inside a small organization

If the exit interview will be followed by a live conversation, keep the form short and use it to prepare better questions. If the form is the main feedback channel, add more detail in the sections below.

27 Copy-Paste Exit Interview Questions You Can Adapt

Use these as a menu, not a checklist. Most teams only need 10 to 15 questions.

1. Employee details

1. Full name
2. Personal email address for follow-up, if needed
3. Department or team
4. Role or job title
5. Manager or supervisor name
6. Last working day

2. Reason for leaving

7. What is your primary reason for leaving?
8. Which option best describes your next step?
9. When did you first start considering leaving?
10. Was there a specific event that influenced your decision?
11. Is there anything the organization could have done differently?

3. Role and workload

12. How well did the role match what you expected when you joined?
13. Was your workload reasonable?
14. Did you have the tools and resources needed to do your work well?
15. Were responsibilities and priorities clear?
16. What part of the role worked best for you?

4. Manager and team experience

17. How supported did you feel by your manager?
18. How clear and useful was feedback from your manager?
19. How would you describe communication within your team?
20. Did you feel included and respected at work?
21. What should the team keep doing?

5. Growth, compensation, and culture

22. Did you see a clear path for growth here?
23. How fair did compensation and benefits feel for the role?
24. What would have made the role more compelling to stay in?
25. What is one thing the company should improve for current employees?

6. Final feedback and follow-up

26. Would you recommend this organization as a place to work?
27. May HR contact you to discuss any of your answers?

Copy-Paste Exit Interview Templates by Use Case

Short exit interview survey

• Full name
• Department
• Last working day
• Primary reason for leaving
• Overall experience rating
• What worked well?
• What should we improve?
• Would you recommend this organization?
• May HR follow up?

Use this when you want a fast written record before a final conversation.

HR exit interview form

• Full name
• Role
• Department
• Manager name
• Last working day
• Primary reason for leaving
• Next step after leaving
• Role expectations rating
• Manager support rating
• Workload rating
• Growth opportunity rating
• Compensation and benefits feedback
• Team communication feedback
• Culture and inclusion feedback
• What should we change?
• Follow-up permission

Use this when HR wants enough structure to compare trends across departures.

Manager-led exit interview prep form

• Employee name
• Role
• Last working day
• What did you enjoy most about the role?
• What made the role harder than expected?
• What could your manager have done differently?
• What should the team keep doing?
• What should the team stop doing?
• What should be handed off before your last day?
• Anything you want to discuss live?

Use this when the manager will run the conversation but wants the employee to prepare thoughts first.

Internship or seasonal employee exit form

• Full name
• Program, department, or location
• Dates worked
• Overall experience rating
• Training quality rating
• Supervisor support rating
• Schedule or workload feedback
• What did you learn?
• What would improve the experience for future participants?
• Would you return or recommend the program?

Use this for interns, temporary staff, seasonal employees, and short-term programs.

Anonymous exit feedback form

• Department or function
• Role level
• Primary reason for leaving
• Overall experience rating
• Manager support rating
• Growth opportunity rating
• Workload rating
• What should the organization improve?
• Anything else you want HR to know?

Use this only if you can genuinely honor the anonymity expectation. Small teams, unique roles, and narrow date ranges can make anonymous feedback easy to identify even when names are not collected.

How to Make an Exit Interview Form in Google Forms

Step 1: Decide whether the form is named or anonymous

Before writing questions, decide what kind of feedback process you are actually offering.

A named form is better when:

• HR may need to follow up
• the feedback is part of a standard offboarding record
• the employee wants a direct conversation
• answers may affect handoff or transition planning

An anonymous form is better when:

• you want broader pattern feedback
• employees may hesitate to be candid
• the organization has enough exits that individual answers are not obvious

Do not call a form anonymous if you collect email addresses, employee IDs, small-team role details, or other information that makes the person identifiable.

Step 2: Start with a clear privacy note

The first paragraph should set expectations before the employee answers anything.

Example:

Thank you for sharing feedback about your experience. HR will review these responses to understand what worked well and what we can improve. If you choose to allow follow-up, we may contact you for a short conversation before or after your last day.

For a named form, say who can review the response. For an anonymous form, say what information you are not collecting and avoid questions that make anonymity unrealistic.

Step 3: Ask for one primary reason first

Exit forms often become hard to review because every answer is a paragraph. Start with one structured reason question.

Good answer choices include:

• New job opportunity
• Compensation or benefits
• Career growth
• Manager relationship
• Workload or burnout
• Schedule or location
• Company culture
• Role mismatch
• Personal reason
• Other

Then add one optional open-text question:

Is there anything you would like to add about your reason for leaving?

This gives HR useful categories without forcing the employee into a box.

Step 4: Use ratings for trends and text for context

Ratings help you compare exits over time. Text answers explain what the ratings mean.

A practical setup is:

• 1 to 5 rating for overall experience
• 1 to 5 rating for manager support
• 1 to 5 rating for workload
• 1 to 5 rating for growth opportunity
• one open-text question after each important rating area

Avoid asking ten rating questions in a row with no space for explanation. The form will be faster to complete, but the answers will be harder to act on.

Step 5: Use sections only when they reduce friction

Google's Forms help documentation says "Go to section based on answer" is available for Multiple choice and Dropdown question types.

That makes sections useful for flows like:

• If May HR follow up? is Yes, show contact preference
• If Primary reason is Manager relationship, show one manager-feedback question
• If Primary reason is Compensation or benefits, show one compensation-feedback question
• If Other, show a short explanation field

Keep branching simple. The goal is to make the form easier to answer, not to turn one exit interview into several separate surveys.

Step 6: Choose response settings carefully

Google's current Forms help documentation notes that under Settings > Responses, you can limit responses, allow response editing, and choose email collection behavior.

For a named internal form, a practical setup is:

• collect work email addresses
• send responders a copy of their response if your policy allows it
• allow response editing while the employee is still active
• avoid showing a public summary of responses

For an anonymous form:

• do not collect email addresses
• do not ask for name or employee ID
• avoid small-team identifiers
• keep the response sheet access limited to the right HR reviewers

The settings matter as much as the questions. A form can say the right thing and still undermine trust if the response settings tell a different story.

Step 7: Add a confirmation message with the next step

A good confirmation message removes uncertainty.

For a named form:

Thank you for sharing your feedback. HR will review your response and follow up if you requested a conversation.

For an anonymous form:

Thank you for sharing your feedback. Your response has been submitted and will be reviewed with other exit feedback.

Keep it short. The employee has already done the work.

Suggested Question Types in Google Forms

Here is a simple field map you can use while building the form:

Use required fields for the questions you truly need. Leave sensitive or reflective questions optional so employees can skip anything they are not comfortable answering.

Exit Interview Questions to Avoid

Questions that sound defensive

Avoid:

Why did you not tell us this sooner?

Use:

Were there earlier points where additional support may have helped?

Questions that ask for gossip

Avoid:

Who caused the biggest problems on your team?

Use:

Were there team communication patterns that made the work harder?

Questions that promise too much

Avoid:

What would make you stay?

Use:

What changes would make this role or team stronger for current employees?

The person has already decided to leave. The form should learn from the exit without implying that every issue can be solved immediately.

Questions that break anonymity by accident

Avoid asking for name, manager, title, exact last day, and department on a form that you also describe as anonymous.

If you need those details, make it a named form. If you need anonymity, keep demographic questions broad.

Common Exit Interview Form Mistakes

Making every question required

Required fields are useful for basic details, but exit feedback often gets better when employees can skip sensitive questions.

Make these required:

• primary reason for leaving
• overall experience rating
• last working day, if named

Consider making these optional:

• manager feedback
• compensation feedback
• culture feedback
• open-ended comments

Asking too many open-ended questions

Paragraph fields look thoughtful, but too many of them can make the form feel like homework.

Use a mix:

• structured choices for review
• rating questions for trends
• a few open-text fields for context

Forgetting the handoff angle

An exit interview form can also help with transition planning.

If the form is sent before the employee's last day, consider asking:

• Are there open projects that need handoff?
• Who should receive access or context?
• What recurring tasks should be documented?
• Are there customer, vendor, or internal relationships that need transition notes?

Keep this section separate from feedback so the employee knows which answers are operational and which are reflective.

Sharing responses too broadly

Exit feedback can be sensitive. Limit access to the response sheet and decide in advance how feedback will be summarized for managers.

If employees believe their exact comments will be forwarded without context, they may soften the feedback or avoid the form entirely.

How to Review Exit Interview Responses

Collecting feedback is only useful if someone reviews it consistently.

A simple review process:

1. Check each new response within a few business days.
2. Flag any answer that needs immediate HR follow-up.
3. Group reasons for leaving by category.
4. Review patterns monthly or quarterly.
5. Share themes with leaders without exposing unnecessary personal details.
6. Choose one or two improvements to act on.

Look for repeated patterns:

• manager support concerns
• unclear role expectations
• workload or burnout
• limited growth paths
• compensation concerns
• team communication issues
• training gaps

One exit response can be useful. A pattern across several exits is much harder to ignore.

How Joliform Fits In

If you already like Google Forms as the backend but want a cleaner experience for employees, Joliform can help you present the same form in a more polished interface.

That is useful when the form is part of a sensitive employee moment. The questions still come from your Google Form and responses still go to your Google Forms workflow, but the employee sees a calmer, more professional page.

Start with How to Use Joliform: The Complete Guide if you want the setup details.

Exit Interview Form FAQ

Can I use Google Forms for exit interviews?

Yes. Google Forms works well for simple exit interview surveys, especially when you want consistent questions and responses stored in Google Sheets. Use a dedicated HR process for sensitive complaints, investigations, or legal concerns.

Should exit interview forms be anonymous?

They can be, but only if the form settings and questions support that. Do not collect email addresses, names, employee IDs, manager names, or narrow role details if you promise anonymity.

How many questions should an exit interview form have?

Most teams should aim for 10 to 15 questions. If you ask more than 20, use sections and make some reflective questions optional.

What is the best rating scale for an exit interview form?

A 1 to 5 scale is usually enough. Pair important ratings with one optional text field so employees can explain the score.

When should I send the exit interview form?

Send it after the resignation or departure date is confirmed, but before the employee loses access. If the form is anonymous and external, you can also share it after the last day.

Should managers see exit interview responses?

Managers may need summarized themes, but raw responses should be handled carefully. Decide who can view the response sheet before sharing the form.

What should the confirmation message say?

Tell the employee what happens next. For example: Thank you for sharing your feedback. HR will review your response and follow up if you requested a conversation.

The Simple Version

Start with one purpose, a short privacy note, a structured reason-for-leaving question, a few ratings, and two or three open-text prompts. Keep the form respectful, limit access to responses, and review answers often enough to spot patterns.

If the default Google Forms layout feels too plain for an employee-facing moment, Joliform can help you publish the same form in a cleaner, more polished experience while keeping the Google Forms workflow behind it.

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