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The proficiency to look at choices and identify a decision by weighing up the positives and negatives of each option and considering all alternatives.
Explore your understanding
Decision making is the process of looking at a problem, exploring the options, researching the outcomes and identifying a conclusion.
Employers are looking to understand more about your thought process and how you can apply this to everyday tasks.
Find and develop your skill
How can you improve your decision making skills at UCL?
Join a club or society
Be part of a club or society within the Students’ Union and further develop your decision making skills. Take on a role within a committee and contribute to the operations and decisions of the wider group. The Students Union also offer a variety of skills sessions such as ‘Taking the initiative’.
Students' Union UCL skills sessions
Improve your decision making by travelling
Engage with UCL Go Abroad programmes encompass an enriching selection of worldwide opportunities tailored to support UCL students to perform at their full potential and further develop their decision making skills. Attend an event to learn more about the global opportunities available both short term and longer term as part of your degree.
Learn more about effective decision making with employers
Interact with graduate employers and develop your skills in decision making by working on problems and activities with other students in workshops and assessment centre sessions.
Employer-led skills sessions
Use LinkedIn Learning to grow your skillset
LinkedIn Learning has a huge range of video courses supporting learning in software, creative and business skills – all free to UCL staff and currently enrolled students.
Developing your decision making skills as a Researcher
Access courses related to decision making to further develop skills within this area. The UCL Doc Skills Programme is open to all postgraduate research students at UCL.
UCL Doctoral Skills Development Programme
You will also be able to browse the scheduled events for researchers and those for doctoral students. Research students can also access courses mapped to the Researcher Development Framework (RDF) and one-to-one advice, practice interviews and workshops tailored to researchers.
Prepare your examples
Ask yourself:
Do you have a project that you have worked on that had a lot of possible outcomes? How did you get to a final answer?
Think about a time where you have had to reach a conclusion as a group. Did you agree with the decision? How did you respond to final decision?
Next Steps:
Want more support on how to structure your answers on decision making as part of an interview?
How to demonstrate your skills in an interview
Here you can find out more about how to structure your answer and demonstrate your skills along with many more resources that will help you prepare.
If you have written a draft application for any type of opportunity, our team can provide personalised and practical tips / advice to help you better understand how recruiters will shortlist your application, and how you can best demonstrate your motivation and your most relevant skills/experience.