Interestingly enough I just made a pretty big career decision a couple of weeks ago. I applied for a job on a whim and was interviewed and went through the entire process and actually was offered the position. I only say, “actually,” because the job I applied for was only hiring interdepartmentally and the competition is stiff. So, when I applied, I thought my chances would be a needle in a haystack chance of getting it and when I received the news that I was offered the position, my decision making sure was put to the test.

I initially used a Heuristics approach to applying for the job. That is, I ignored some information, and used shortcuts to make a quick decision on whether to apply for the job or not. I figured I would use logical reasoning on whether to accept the position or not upon being offered the position. Once offered the position I went through the steps pretty much as they present in our text. They were the five phases: setting goals, gathering information, structuring the decision, making a final choice, and evaluation of the process. The goal was to apply for the job. I then gathered information about the pros and cons of the job once they offered me the job. I have been at my current employment for 14 years so I wanted to see what the positives would be for me to leave this job behind and start anew. I structured the decision by going over everything, talking it through with my spouse, talking to Human Resources Department to answer any questions I had on benefits and I was prepped enough to make my final decision. My final decision was made about two weeks ago when I called and let them know I would accept the decision.

Now, on a little less lighter note of decision making I did recently was picking a restaurant/bar for a work get together for my upcoming last day of work. Admittedly, I think I used a framing bias decision making theory for my decision on the restaurant. A co-worker of mine suggested the place and talked its praise and had me interested. So, without doing much due diligence I called, asked if they’d have room to host a work gathering and reserved the area. I didn’t use facts for my decision. I just used information that was presented from my co-worker to choose the restaurant. I think I did this because I was feeling overwhelmed and wanted to just plan something quickly and get it out of the way. I hope it works out!

Because neither of these decisions have actually started yet; my new job starts in a couple weeks and the work gathering is next week, so I won’t fully know until then if my decision making was useful or not. I think that in the moment however it worked best for how I typically operate and go through life. I tend to act and think of the outcome later. Kind of like a knee jerk reaction to things and then I say what did I get myself into. I thought that immediately when I was offered the job. I started to second guess myself. Like did I make the right decision? Is my decision making ability at fault or is it that I don’t like change? I think it’s the latter. I believe that how I go about making decisions in important matters of my life is what works best for me and typically find myself overall using a heuristics approach.