Decision making interview questions, with answers

Common questions

• Tell me about a difficult decision you made.
• Describe a time you had to decide quickly without all the facts.
• Tell me about a decision you regret.
• How do you make decisions when your team disagrees?
• Describe a time you had to say no to a customer or colleague.

The answer shape

1. The decision: what you had to choose between, in one sentence.
2. The stakes: who or what it affected.
3. How you weighed it: the facts you checked and who you asked.
4. The choice and why.
5. The result, and what you would do again.

Two sample answers

A tough call: As a shift lead at a restaurant, two staff called in sick on a Saturday. I could call in someone on their day off or close half the tables. I checked the bookings, saw we were full only from seven, and closed the back section until then while one person came in for the evening. We served every booking and nobody worked a double shift.

A fast decision: A customer on chat wanted to cancel an order that had just been packed. Our rule allowed cancelling before dispatch. I checked dispatch status, saw it had not left, and cancelled it on the spot instead of asking the customer to wait for a call back. The customer thanked us in the survey.

Mistakes to avoid

• Only giving the decision and skipping how you weighed it.
• Choosing an example with no real trade-off.
• Answering the regret question with a fake regret.

Practise it out loud

On Just One Interview, you type the role and the skills you want tested, and an AI interviewer asks you the questions out loud. You get a report with a score for each answer and a count of your filler words. It runs in the browser on your phone, and the free plan includes 20 minutes of practice a month. Related: critical thinking interview questions.