Decision Making

Decision making skills are important to assess during the pre-employment stages of hiring. Use this test to assess a candidate's decision making abilities.

  • What is a decision making test?

    Soft skills like decision making are becoming more important in the modern job world, and this is true across almost all job roles in all industries.

    For recruiters that are hiring for roles that need decision making skills like supervisors, managers, and team leaders, the decision making skills tests give easy-to-understand results.

    The questions in the decision making skills test are based on realistic work-related scenarios, asking candidates to decide what the best course of action should be to solve the presented problem. This type of assessment puts the applicant into the position of already being an employee and assesses how they would use their decision making skills if they were already in the role.

Jump to a section on this page:

  1. What is a decision making test?
  2. Why is a decision making test so important when hiring?
  3. How to assess decision making skills using our test
  4. Decision Making FAQs

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Our pre-employment tests let you drill down to the best candidates at the click of a button.

  • Find those candidates who will excel in the role.

    Select the assessments that match the skills or behaviours for the position. You can test for software or coding competency, soft skills like teamwork, or personality traits, to be sure those who pass have high potential.

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  • Eliminate bias.

    All your candidates take the assessments on a level playing field. Only their results determine whether they get shortlisted.

  • Why is a decision making test so important when hiring?

    For roles where important decisions have to be made, usually at the manager level and above, good decision-making skills are needed for success. Candidates who apply for one of these roles need to be able to make decisions that could include dealing with staff issues, responding to customer complaints, maintaining a good relationship with suppliers, or any number of other decisions that need to be made for a company to be successful.

    Candidates might list decision-making skills on their resume, but it is not that simple to assess the level of skill that each candidate has just using a paper sift. Self-reporting is not always accurate and the applicant may not describe their level of skill adequately enough.

    Some recruiters might want to ask questions in the interview stage that assess a candidate on their decision-making skills, which can be helpful but in many cases is a very subjective way of doing it. It is also not the quickest or cheapest way to find the right answers and can be unwieldy if there are many applicants that meet the basic criteria.

    The decision making skills test can be used in the early stages of the recruitment process as a pre-employment screening assessment. It can be administered to a large number of applicants at the same time, and each candidate can take the test in their own time, with the results available immediately to the recruitment team.

    For the candidate, the assessment is straightforward and quick to complete, and for the recruiter, the objective and quantitative data can be used to understand how well each candidate can apply their decision making skills to a work-related problem.

    Soft skills tests like the decision making assessment can be used in the recruitment process for most roles across all industries, but they are most useful when recruiting for:

    • Department managers
    • Customer service team leaders
    • Sales executives
    • HR managers

More Soft Skills Tests

Sample Decision Making question

As the director of a skincare company, you are looking to release a new product very soon. Your development team has warned you that there is a printing error on the packaging. However, it will not affect the product. What do you do?

  • Leave it as is, the product is still fine, and people will not pay close attention to the packaging.

  • Notify retailers of the error and reduce the price for this batch.

  • Restart from the beginning and push the release date of the product.

  • Keep the release date of the product and try to fix the packaging issue as soon as possible.

How to assess decision making skills using our test

Our decision making skills test asks a variety of questions that vary in difficulty level. Candidates who demonstrate strong decision making skills should be able to answer most of the questions correctly.

The decision making skills test provides valuable data insight into the strengths of a candidate's decision making abilities. The test is structured using multiple-choice questions: a familiar format for most test-takers, that allows for instant and objective scoring.

As well as the correct answer, there are typically 2–3 distractors, representing common misconceptions and mistakes. This helps make the test more challenging, so a candidate's ability can be measured more accurately.

Test scores are provided to the user and can be compared to other test-takers in your talent pool, to see how they perform relative to each other.

Each test has been thoroughly reviewed to ensure accuracy and validity in line with industry standards. It has been written, examined and edited by I/O psychologists and psychometric professionals. It has also been reviewed by a diverse sample of job seekers to check for any issues including sensitivity, face validity, fairness and accessibility.

This test is continually monitored so our team can optimize performance and regularly assess fairness issues.

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Predictor of job success

Picked provides evidence-based recommendations for tests to use for over 750 jobs. Our recommendation engine leverages data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) developed by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA).

  • Assessments

    A full suite of assessments

    Our platform comes with 12 tests across both foundation and advanced levels so they’re suitable for everyone. Including aptitude, behavioural and personality tests, you’ll have a full range of tests to help you find the candidates you’re seeking.

  • Analytics

    An array of candidate metrics

    For each of your candidates, you’ll be given a comprehensive report. Included will be all the metrics you need to build a detailed picture of each candidate and ensure you’re making the right hiring decisions.

“The platform is so simple to use. I had used competitor providers for over six years and will never go back. Fast, efficient and friendly!”
Greg Chambers, HR Business Partner, Littlefish Ltd
Greg Chambers, HR Business Partner, Littlefish Ltd

Decision Making FAQs

How can you test for decision making skills?

Decision-making skills can be tested in the interview stage by asking questions about how a candidate has made a difficult decision in the past, but using a decision-making test is easier to administer, can be used on a large number of candidates, and provides objective, quantifiable results.

Are decision making tests difficult?

For the candidate, the content of the decision making skills test should not be too difficult if they have the required level of skill. The structure and format of the test can be challenging, however as it puts the candidate under exam conditions and pressure.

Who should be given a decision making test?

Decision making is a soft skill that is needed for most roles, but candidates for management-level roles should be given a decision making test as part of the recruitment process.

Is decision making an important skill?

Soft skills are often more intangible than technical or hard skills, but they are needed for success in most roles. Decision making is an important skill, especially for roles that involve managing a team.

“An unbeatable service, impressive platform and fantastic value for money.”
Laurence Fishman, Partner, NLPCA
Laurence Fishman, Partner, NLPCA

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