Why Decision Making Skills Are Important in Hiring (And How to Identify Them)

Here's a number that should keep every hiring manager awake at night: Poor decision-making costs businesses up to 40% of their profits (Decision Design, 2024).

For Fortune 500 companies, that translates to approximately £186 million in wasted labour costs annually (McKinsey, 2023). And it gets worse: 68% of middle managers believe most of their decision-making time is inefficient, leading to cascading problems throughout the organisation.

Think about your current team. Who makes the critical decisions that impact your business daily? Your managers, your project leads, your client-facing staff. If they can't evaluate information accurately, weigh options effectively, or choose the right course of action under pressure, every aspect of your business suffers.

But here's the problem: Most hiring teams can't reliably identify strong decision-makers during the recruitment process. They're missing crucial insights that could prevent costly hiring mistakes and build teams of confident, effective decision-makers.

Decision-making isn't just about big strategic choices. It's the hundreds of daily decisions that either drive your business forward or hold it back.

Consider what your employees decide every day:

• Priority setting: Which tasks deserve immediate attention when everything feels urgent?
• Problem solving: How to approach unexpected challenges without escalating to management?
• Resource allocation: Where to invest time and effort for maximum impact?
• Risk assessment: When to take calculated risks versus playing it safe?
• Quality vs. speed trade-offs: How to balance thoroughness with efficiency?

Employees with strong decision-making skills approach these situations systematically. They gather relevant information, consider multiple options, anticipate consequences, and choose rationally even under pressure.

These skills become even more critical as roles involve greater autonomy, client interaction, or team leadership. A manager who consistently makes poor decisions doesn't just affect their own performance. They impact team morale, client relationships, and business outcomes across the organisation.

The question is: How can you identify these crucial skills before making a hire?

If decision-making is so crucial, why do most hiring teams struggle to identify it? The uncomfortable truth is that traditional interview methods are poorly suited for evaluating how someone actually makes decisions.

The fundamental flaws in interview-based decision assessment:

1. Retrospective storytelling isn't real-time thinking

When you ask "Tell me about a time you made a difficult decision," you're getting a polished narrative, not insight into their actual decision-making process. Candidates can rehearse these stories, emphasise positive outcomes, and gloss over flawed reasoning.

2. Hypothetical scenarios lack genuine pressure

Interview questions like "What would you do if..." create artificial situations where candidates have unlimited time to think and no real consequences for their choices. This bears little resemblance to workplace decision-making, where time pressure and genuine stakes fundamentally change how people think.

3. Interviewer bias distorts evaluation

Interviewers unconsciously favour candidates who make decisions in ways similar to their own, regardless of whether those decisions are objectively sound. Confirmation bias leads them to interpret vague responses as evidence of good judgment if they already like the candidate.

4. Communication skills mask thinking quality

Articulate candidates can make poor reasoning sound convincing, while strong thinkers who struggle with verbal communication may appear less capable than they actually are.

5. Sample size problems

A handful of interview questions provides an incredibly narrow window into someone's decision-making capabilities. You're essentially gambling on whether those few examples represent their typical performance.

This is why so many "great interview candidates" struggle once they're in role, particularly when facing complex decisions without a script to follow.

What if you could objectively measure how candidates actually process information and make decisions? Critical thinking assessments do exactly that, providing reliable insights that interviews simply can't match.

Unlike interview questions, these assessments present candidates with scenarios that require real-time analysis, logical reasoning, and evidence-based conclusions. They measure the cognitive processes that underpin all effective decision-making.

These aren't abstract academic exercises. They directly predict workplace performance because they measure the fundamental thinking patterns that drive all decision-making.

Why assessments succeed where interviews fail:

Standardised conditions

Every candidate faces identical scenarios under controlled conditions, eliminating interviewer bias and ensuring fair comparison.

Behavioural evidence, not stories

You see how candidates actually think through problems in real-time, rather than relying on their ability to tell compelling stories about past decisions.

Objective scoring

Results are based on demonstrable skills, not subjective impressions about personality or communication style.

Predictive validity

Research consistently shows that critical thinking assessments predict job performance more accurately than traditional interviews alone.

The bottom line: Critical thinking assessments give you objective, reliable data about the cognitive skills that drive effective decision-making. You can finally move beyond guesswork to evidence-based hiring decisions.

Ready to start identifying strong decision-makers reliably? Here's exactly how to integrate critical thinking assessments into your existing hiring process:

1. Add assessments early in your process

   Include critical thinking assessments alongside or immediately after CV screening. This ensures you only invest interview time in candidates who demonstrate strong analytical abilities. Most assessments take 15-20 minutes, making them far more efficient than phone screens.

2. Use results to inform interview focus

   Strong assessment scores indicate candidates who can think analytically under pressure. Use your interview time to explore cultural fit, motivation, and role-specific experience rather than trying to evaluate decision-making skills through hypothetical questions.

3. Set clear benchmarks

   Work with your assessment provider to establish score thresholds that align with role requirements. Senior positions and roles involving complex decisions typically require higher critical thinking scores than junior or process-driven roles.

4. Combine with other measures

   Critical thinking assessments are powerful but work best as part of a comprehensive evaluation. Combine them with personality assessments to understand how candidates apply their analytical skills in different situations and team contexts.

Pro tip: Start with a pilot group of key roles where decision-making is most critical. Track how assessment scores correlate with on-job performance over 6-12 months to build confidence in the approach before rolling out more widely.

To recap: Poor decision-making costs businesses up to 40% of their profits, yet most hiring teams can't reliably identify strong decision-makers through interviews alone. Critical thinking assessments provide objective, predictive insights into the analytical skills that drive effective workplace decisions.

If you're ready to move beyond guesswork and start identifying candidates who can make sound decisions under pressure:

• Explore our critical thinking assessments: See sample questions, review technical documentation, and understand how they predict job performance. View our critical thinking tests
• Get personalised guidance: Not sure which assessment fits your specific roles? Book a conversation with our team for expert recommendations tailored to your hiring needs.
• Start small, think big: Consider piloting assessments with one or two critical roles first, then expand based on results.

The data is clear: businesses that prioritise decision-making skills in their hiring process build stronger, more effective teams. The only question is whether you'll be one of them.