The truth hurts you! No, I’m not advocating lying, but I am advocating not sharing information on an exit interview. Sure, this is selfish advice, but then again, isn’t career advice supposed to be selfish in nature?

Now to make sure we’re all clear here if your opinion is solicited by your boss or the folks in Human Resources BEFORE you resign, gladly share your opinions, but do remember to be delicate about it and avoid naming names. If your employer requests your opinions AFTER you resign, do yourself a huge favor: smile nicely, talk about the new opportunity you’re looking forward to and how you appreciated everything the organization did for you and wish them the best. PERIOD. END OF REPORT!

If you need proof of this, let me offer this recent war story. Good and loyal employee resigns from their current company to go to greener pastures (aren’t they always?) at company “B”. Unfortunately, the green pasture at company “B” actually turns out to be a green swamp full of death and disease. Needless to say the employee makes a U-turn when he decides that he would be better suited back at his old company where he left on great terms (i.e., no bad mouthing, Monday morning quarterbacking, etc.).

This would not have been possible no matter how nicely (and justifiably) the employee told his company about all of their warts. So the lesson here is if you feel compelled to have an impact on an organization you’re more likely to make it happen while you are on their team, not while you’re heading out the door for free agency. So keep your mouth shut and your professional reputation intact, and you won’t burn any bridges on your travels.