Sense-making

When we use our sense-making skills, we're trying to process large amounts of information. This helps us to solve problems. 

It’s all about:  analysing, understanding  and recognising patterns.

Your sense-making skill

You’ve likely used your sense-making skills in loads of different scenarios.

You might be shopping online for a new product, for example. You’ll look at reviews, check out the product information and seek opinions from others to decide whether to buy it or not.

In school, you’ll be absorbing lots of new information your teacher is giving you and processing it.

Top tips for developing your sense-making skills

In general: Thinking about a situation you've been in and telling your friends about what you experienced or learned from it.
In school: Remembering information you’ve learned in class to help you get the correct answers in a test.
In work: Reading an email from someone and being able to understand what they’re telling or asking of you.

Describing your sense-making skills to employers

Employers like to know you can gather, analyse and make sense of complex information.

Think about examples of times you:

saw ways to make improvements in a project or task
took in new information, or called on information you already knew, and used parts of each to make a decision