A career decision is a special category of decisions. It represents the distance between an existing and a desirable state.

Both, the initial state (I do not know myself as good and as realistic I think) and the final state (I only have a somehow limited view over the labor market) are vaguely defined; even more unclear are the strategies you need to use.

After almost a century, the new informational era and the researches in human psychology outline a more complex and even disturbing picture. There is a rational-logic way of information processing, but there is also an intuitive and automatic way, which is responsible for the majority of our decisions.

People often believe that they are aware of the cognitive processes governing their behavior but they are not completely right. The cognitive processes sometimes function at a subconscious level. When we try retrospectively to think about this, we tend to rebuild the decisional process from a new perspective.

Therefore, what we present as our choice criteria for a past decision, often have little in common with the true motives of our choice at that time.

In the very end, the accuracy of a decision depends upon the quality of information the decision maker has: therefore, optimally obtaining information is mandatory.

Given these conditions, "nonrational" decision models emerged. The accent moved towards intuition, emotion, subjectivity and interdependence, accepting ambiguity and incertitude.

The only strategy recommended by the practitioners of those career-counseling models is the accumulation of work-related experience. Nonrational models emphasize what is probably the most valuable component of a career decision: to have correct and authentic information gathered through experience.

At questionnaires answered by young people concerning their career decision process, the most common themes were: deciding based on intuition, on various experiences, and based on feelings.

Social support proved to be a very present factor in a career decision: family's and friends' opinions have strongly influenced decisions and engaging in various activities such courses, internships or jobs have determined an indispensable information support.

• Try not to deliberate too long because you don't have enough information to make a decision. Learn how to use the sufficient minimum for making a choice.
• Try not to ignore your emotions and the implications for significant others when making a decision. You will not have the energy for a constant implementation of the decision you have made if you are not affectively committed to that decision or concentrated on managing emotional discomfort

Regardless the situations, you being rational or intuitive-emotional, do not adopt a passive - contemplative attitude.  Take action!

Get into various activities that could bring you experience and information. Try to use a rational filter when you have clear arguments or benchmarks. In the same time, do not trust only your reasoning, but carefully select your inspirational sources. 

• Use your sensing to evaluate objectively the situation. Which are the concrete facts and things that you should take in consideration, having connection with your education, professional experience, or with present economic situation?
• Use your intuition to see beyond present, toward new possibilities. Use your imagination to evaluate options you have never considered until now. Have you been stuck in old thinking routines?  Are there experiences in your past that you missed? Try to expand your vision of the future from one to ten years or even to the end of your life.
• Use your thinking to make a critical and objective analysis of a possible choice. Consider especially your career dreams. Which could be good or bad sides of an option? Be as realistic as possible!
• Use your feelings to evaluate how your choices could influence the relationships with your family, friends or colleagues. How about your needs for security, accepting challenges or living your life with integrity? How will your choices affect the things you most care for in your life?

(Jung - Myers Brigs Type Indicator theory)

Errors or bad strategies are also very important for the career decision process. There are several specific categories for decision-making difficulties:

Finally, the third major category is inconsistent information and includes unreliable information and internal or external conflicts.

Within certain circumstances is useful not to make a decision if you do not believe in it; do not act just because "you have to" or is something "image-valued" in the social environment. It is healthier to continue exploring (and not to passively resign) until you find the choice which entirely gain your commitment.

Take care not to transform indecision into virtue: whatever you might do (even if you stand still) time is irreversibly flying away ...

A decision is a deliberate choice between several options. 

Professionals talk about a decision-making competence (DMC) that should relate to cognitive ability. In other words, decision-making could be seen as a form of intelligence, but it is not limited to this.

Decision making processes involve, typically, 4 fundamental skills:

• To have accurate opinions about things: this skill means to be accurate when you consider how probable an event will occur or a statement is true or false
• To have stable benchmarks when making evaluations: this means to have consistent well-articulated values. The point is not having good or poor values (this is a matter of individual taste) but rather not being fluctuant without good reason and correctly discerning between significant and non-significant
• To correctly create a decision rule: using accurate opinions and stable benchmarks one can effectively create a strategy to choose the most useful variant and put it in practice
• To have a balanced confidence about your decision competence: people with unwarranted confidence may undertake tasks beyond their abilities, underutilize available assistance, and neglect signs that decisions go wrong. People with insufficient confidence may hesitate too much, defer to others, or doubt their ability to identify appropriate courses of action.

Decision-making is a competence that differentiates people (inspiration and effectiveness to insanity and stupidity). Large part of the performance differences in decisions appear to be strongly influenced by the cognitive limits. The rest of the differences are due to emotions, stress, lack of information, lack of method or a mix of all that.

You will be able to surpass part of them by going through our career development process.

One of Tiedeman's major contributions is his decisional model. There are four main ideas of Tiedeman's career decision model to bear in mind:

No. 4: Career development can occur in parallel streams. This is the case of a person following simultaneously several vocational interests; he/she can be exploring the job market for finding a new profession while continuing to develop expertise in a current occupation.