Describe the process you typically follow bto make a decision about a plan of action
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“How Do You Make Important Decisions?” – Example Interview Answers
Interview Questions and Answers/ By Biron Clark
"how do you make decisions?" (interview question)
Employers love asking interview questions about decision-making. They want to make sure you can handle pressure and react well to tough situations.
So you could hear questions like, “how do you make important decisions?” in any interview.
It’s especially common when you’re applying for jobs that require you to make tough choices or work independently. It’s also common in interviews for entry-level jobs.
You need to be able to clearly describe how you make decisions, and ideally give examples of past decisions that worked out well for you. Managers want people they can trust and don’t have to keep an eye on every second. So this question is your chance to put their mind at ease.
How To Answer “How Do You Make Decisions?”
In this section, I’m going to give you 3 steps for answering decision making interview questions like, “tell me how you make decisions”. Then in the next section, we’ll look at two word-for-word answer examples.
Here are the steps to create a great answer:
1. Show you have a system
The goal here is to sound like you have a system or a process you follow. It doesn’t have to be an exact science, but you want to sound like you approach decisions the same way, rather than doing something completely different each time or trusting your gut (don’t reply by saying “I just trust my gut”).
A good start to your answer will sound like this:
“I like to gather as much information as possible to aid in my decision, but I also consider how much time is available to me. Sometimes a decision needs to be made quickly, even if all the information can’t be gathered, so I weigh time versus information. Then I look at possible outcomes and the likely results of my decisions, and make the best choice for my team and my organization with the facts available.”
2. Give an example of a decision you made (and the outcome)
This is good advice for pretty much all of the interview questions you face… don’t just say how you’d do something, give examples.
So when they ask how you make decisions, you’d give an answer like what I shared above and then go on to say something like this:
“…For example in my last job, I was presented with a tough decision while my boss was absent. I had to decide between fixing a piece of software we had already created, or starting over. It turned out that starting over would only take a few hours longer than applying a fix to what we had, and through some discussion with colleagues I also determined that fixing what we currently had might still leave us open to a risk of future problems and issues. So I decided we should start over, spend the extra time now and avoid any future complications, and my boss completely agreed with the decision when he returned to the office.”
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3. Try to seem as logical and fact-based as possible!
Whatever you do, just remember that in almost all cases, it’s best to seem logical when you describe how you make decisions. Show that you rely on facts, that you look to gather information before deciding, etc.
Don’t sound like you act on emotion or hunches. Employers don’t want to hire someone who’s going to be unpredictable, make decisions “on the fly”, etc. So the best way to put their mind at ease when answering decision making questions is to show you follow a logical process.
That’s my best advice here.
If a hiring manager asks “how do you make decisions?”… they want to see someone who consistently follows a plan to come to the right choice.
Full Example Answers For “How Do You Make Decisions?”
Let’s put everything together based on the three steps we looked at above. Here are two example answers for how you make effective decisions.
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