I am not in the Americas or Europe. I am from a small South Asian country (IYKYK), but that is not immediately relevant to this story. This experience is from 2008, when I was 27 years old. (42M now).
This is a bit of a long story, so if you want to read the part about the exit interview itself, I have made the heading for that Bold
At age 26, I joined one of the largest Software development companies in my country as an Associate Software Engineer (Entry level job, because the company in which I previously worked closed down without warning. I was happy to get the job for not much of a pay rise, and they provided training for a couple of months, so I thought I would fit in.
How wrong I was.
The place was a cesspool of toxic behaviour and it was all about who you know rather than how hard you work. I was assigned to a project and there was no real introduction to the project or any guidance other than for the immediate work at hand. At least 2 people I know had died of exhaustion and stress-related conditions there.
This is when I discovered that I was better at documentation than software engineering, and an opportunity arose at a smaller company as a member of a team of Technical Writers (For anyone curious, a Technical Writer basically writes manuals, help, and other documentation for software and hardware). I applied for that job and was given an offer that was much better than the current position (pay was about 16% higher, and the place seemed better to work in. Also, the location was so close to my house that I could walk to office).
I handed in my resignation and my notice period was 1 month, from what I remember. I had said my goodbyes to everyone I was friendly with.
The Exit interview Directly from The Bad Place
The HR team at this company was well known to be full of what I call Jackals – Sly people who do the bidding of corporate just so that they can be seen favourably. My exit interview was with one such person. The questions/statements were as follows:
Note that I was young and wasn't prepared not to answer questions like this, and the answers are not all in chronological order. It happened 16 years ago.
- What job are you switching to? I said Technical Writer.
- Why are you switching to Technical Writing? It's a girls' job. I did not call out his blatant sexism (I would have if I were older). I said that it's what I want to do and I already have said yes to the offer.
- Why are you leaving (company name)? We have a Technical Writing team here. I said I have a better offer.
- We can give you the same salary. I said it's not just about the salary. I didn't enjoy working there.
- In the form (There was a form to be filled before the exit interview) you have stated that you won't recommend (company name) as a good workplace to anyone. Can we get you to change your response? I stood up for myself and said no, I don't want to recommend it to anyone. I said I will start telling everyone of how toxic the work environment is over there.
- The guy got defensive and said It can't have been that bad. I have been here for x years and I have always been treated well etc. I said that's his experience, not mine.
- You can always rescind the job offer and continue to work here. We will match the salary (this was repeated several times). I said I don't want to go back on the offer that a better company has made and that I won't continue to work there even if they doubled the offer.
- The guy seemed to get mad at me and said Why are you so bitter? Did you have some bad experience? I said yes. That's the whole point I am leaving. This entire job is a bad experience.
Sorry about the long post, but I thought this kind of experience should be shared.