An exit interview is a survey conducted with an individual who is separating from an organization or relationship. Most commonly, this occurs between an employee and an organization, a student and an educational institution, or a member and an association.
An exit interview can be used to find out why the employee is leaving. Once HR (human resources) has this information, they can use it to determine if there are actions they should take to help prevent future attrition - perhaps staff feels the opportunities for promotion are limited and they are seeking jobs elsewhere, or perhaps a particular manager has poor skills and staff is looking for new positions so they no longer have to work with this person.