Question 1

What is a stay interview?

Accepted Answer

A conversation with an employee who is **still there**, asking what would make them stay and what might make them leave — the logical counterpart to an exit interview, and far more useful, since the information arrives while you can still act on it.

**Why exit interviews are a poor tool.** The person is leaving, so there is no benefit to candour and some risk in it — references, future contact, and simply wanting a clean exit. Answers are consequently softened, and the most common stated reason for leaving is frequently not the real one. **By the time you learn the problem, the person is gone and the cost is already incurred.**

**What a stay interview asks:** what do you look forward to at work; what are you learning; what would you change; what would make you consider leaving; do you feel your contribution is recognised; what do you want to be doing in two years; and **is there anything I do that makes your job harder**.

**What makes it work:**

**It is separate from performance review.** Mixing the two ruins both, because nobody speaks freely in a conversation that affects their rating.

**The manager does it**, not HR — the relationship with a direct manager is the largest driver of retention, so the conversation belongs there.

**Something changes afterwards.** This is the whole thing. **Asking and doing nothing is worse than not asking**, because it demonstrates that raising problems is pointless — and people conclude that faster than any other lesson.

**Regularity** — once or twice a year, so it is not an alarming event.

**What it surfaces**, according to organisations that use it: workload and unsustainable pace before burnout; development stagnation, which is a leading cause of departure among strong performers; recognition gaps; specific friction with processes or people; and **life circumstances** that a small adjustment could accommodate.

**The limits.** It will not retain someone leaving for substantially more money or for a fundamentally different opportunity, and it should not be used to extract a commitment to stay.

**The underlying point:** most resignations are the end of a process that was visible for months.

Question 2

How do exit interviews work and should you be honest?

Accepted Answer

An exit interview is a conversation, usually with HR, when you leave a job — covering why you are going, your experience, and what could improve. What the employer wants from it: patterns across

Question 3

How do you choose between two job offers?

Accepted Answer

By comparing the things that will actually determine your experience, which are mostly not the things that dominate the decision in practice — salary and job title. Compare total compensation, not

Question 4

What is an informational interview, and how do you ask for one?

Accepted Answer

A conversation with someone working in a role, organisation or sector you are interested in, to learn rather than to ask for a job — and the distinction is the entire reason it works. Why the framing

Question 5

What is constructive dismissal?

Accepted Answer

Resigning in response to a fundamental breach of contract by the employer, and being treated in law as having been dismissed — which is why it is described as constructive: the dismissal is

Question 6

What is a competency interview, and what is the STAR method?

Accepted Answer

A competency — or behavioural — interview asks about things you have actually done, on the premise that past behaviour predicts future behaviour better than hypothetical answers do. STAR is the

Question 7

How do you return to work after a long career break?

Accepted Answer

By treating the gap as a fact to be explained briefly rather than a deficiency to be apologised for — and by rebuilding the three things that actually decay during a break: currency, network and

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