Decision making

We are all individuals, and the decisions we make have to suit our individual personalities, needs and satisfactions. Whether you have given a lot of thought to your future career or not, the golden rule is not to feel pressured into making a quick decision. Feeling that you are under pressure can actually make it more difficult to sort out ideas in your own mind.

Tips to approaching decision making

Start your research with 'you'

• Find out more about who you are and what you have to offer.
• Reflect on your achievements including academic achievements at school or at university. This is particularly helpful for new graduates with little or no work experience as a pattern of achievement is likely to be repeated in later years.

List your skills

• Skills may include advising, coaching, communicating, analysing, researching, organising, painting, and repairing.
• Think about situations in which you have demonstrated these skills.
• Highlight skills that you would enjoy using on a regular basis as part of your ideal job.

Keep in mind your values

• Values are things that are important to you, that you are committed to, that excite you and that make you happy.

Think about the things you like doing

Give some thought to areas which most interest you, i.e. administrative, artistic, computational, literary, mechanical, outdoor, scientific and / or social service. Consider such aspects as working on your own / with other people; giving / taking supervision; dealing with the public; persuading people; working with machinery; working indoors / outdoors etc.

Be honest with yourself

• Be honest with yourself about known disabilities or physical impairments that may impact upon what you want to do - allergies, colour blindness, back problems, etc.

Be realistic about your commitments

• Be realistic about the impact of family and other commitments on your employment in terms of hours, financial commitments and limitations with regard to location.

Start by looking at a broad variety of jobs

• You have an element of choice in the career that you follow irrespective of what degree you have studied.
• Initially, try not to say 'what job can I do with this degree subject?'. Eventually, you will need to come back to your major, but at first you need to be able to let your ideas run freely. You may well feel constrained if you limit your research to jobs that relate directly to your degree.

Seven steps to successful decision-making

The process of making a decision has different steps or stages.

When you're faced with an important decision about your career, using a model like Krumboltz & Hamel’s 7 step DECIDES model can give you more control over the decision-making process and often more successful results.

Think of the process as a challenge rather than an insurmountable problem, and you may even start to enjoy making decisions!