Weighted
Decision Making Matrix
Weighted
decision making in designed to take some of the emotion out of deciding about a
new job or career options. In this model
you determine what criteria are important to you in a job. It is important to
think about all the factors that would affect your decision like amount of time
it takes to get to work, reporting relationships, business travel etc. Once you
have determined those factors you then choose weights for those factors.
Case
study- Sue
In the
following example we find Sue who is trying to decide whether to leave her job. She
has a young daughter who has some health problems that require a number of
doctors and specialists appointments. Sue wants to not only spend time with her
daughter but also be able to schedule appointments in a consistent manner. For
her hours of work and work life balance are the most important factors. She
gives those factors a 9. Pay and benefits are the next most important factors
so she ranks those as 7s. What is not very important to Sue is vacation time,
since she only wants to work four days or less a week. She gives this factor a
4.
The
weights are the same when evaluating both the current and future position.
The
potential new job pays a little bit less than she makes right now and has the
same hours of work as she presently has. Since it is a new job she will have
the opportunity to learn new things. In
her current job she is an administrative assistant, but she was trained as a
graphic artist. The new job allows her to use these talents. Her present job
has a company benefits the new job has no benefits at all. She has discussed
her family needs with the potential employer and they have agreed that she can
make up time that she misses when she has appointments that can’t be rescheduled
on her day off. She would be going from
three weeks vacation to 4% vacation pay and a predetermined vacation schedule.
Sue is not sure which job is the best job for her. She uses the weighted
decision model.
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Sue’s Current Job
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Job Option A
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weight
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raw score
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Total
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weight
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raw score
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Total
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Criteria
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Pay
@ least $25/hr
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7
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10
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70
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7
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8
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56
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Less
than 30 hours/wk
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9
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10
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90
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9
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10
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90
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Learning
opportunities
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5
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5
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25
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5
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6
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30
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Recognize
& use talents
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5
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2
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10
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5
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8
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40
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Company
paid benefits
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7
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10
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70
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7
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0
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0
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Vacation
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4
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7
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28
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4
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3
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12
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Work
life balance
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9
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7
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63
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9
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10
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90
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Less
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318
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Fear
(how afraid are you to change?)
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5
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5
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Change
(how much will it upset your life)
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5
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5
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356
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308
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Sue
subtracts how afraid she is of changing on a scale of 1 to 10 as well as how
much the change will disrupt her life from the new job. (There is no change if
she stays in her current job).
Based
on how she assessed each job, she is better to stay at her current job. With
Company paid benefits weighted heavily she will most likely always need to find
a job with benefits in order for it to be the right job.
This
model can be difficult because you need to assess what you really want and how
valuable it is to you in relation to other factors. It allows you to see the
trade offs you are making in tangible numbers.
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Current Job
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New Job
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weight
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raw score
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Total
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weight
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raw score
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Total
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Criteria
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Less
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Fear
(how afraid are you to change?)
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Change
(how much will it upset your life)
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0
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0
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