What's Your Tolerance for Ambiguity? | Best Answer (from former CEO)

In this video, I answer the job interview question "What's your tolerance for ambiguity?". This is the best way I've ever seen to answer this question.
This is the 4th video in my series on Getting Hired. I will be exploring all the common job interview questions, including "What's your tolerance for ambiguity?" - one of the hardest exotic job interview questions to answer well. Please see the other videos in my "Get Hired" playlist for more tips.

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In this video, I give you a "What's your tolerance for ambiguity?" answer.
This job interview question has many forms:
What's your tolerance for ambiguity?
What's your tolerance to ambiguity?
How do you deal with ambiguity?
How are you at managing ambiguity?
Are you comfortable with ambiguity?
How do you handle ambiguity?
Are you adaptable to ambiguity?
Can you adjust to ambiguity?
Can you operate in ambiguity?
It also relates to what is ambiguity, ambiguity examples, ambiguity meaning, tolerance for ambiguity, and ambiguous issues.

#jobinterview
#jobinterviewquestions
#interviewquestionsandanswers

(Please note: I own the copyright to all music contained in this video, and can provide verification upon request.)

[TheCompaniesExpert]

Anyone have any thoughts on the "music"? Good? Bad? Distracting? Not KICKING enough??

[SpicyElaichi]

Engineer here, I would separate this up personally.

1. If we're talking technical specifications, NO tolerance for ambiguity. Ambiguity will either make you lose money redesigning poorly labeled parts/labor or kill somebody when your product goes to market.

2. if talking directions: high tolerance.

I think this question is just ironic cuz its ambiguous itself. Like which thing are we talking about lol

[isldsnow]

"Great question. I thrive in ambiguity. In my previous job, every project was vague to start with. It was my role to bring clarity to the scope, define the planning and execute the deliverable. In the end, the more ambiguous the project/activity was, the more rewarding it was when I delivered." (Yes, you may use this for your interview. LOL)

[alex]

Q: "What's your tolerance for ambiguity?"
A: "Maybe."

[drechslervilela]

This tip is brilliant. As a researcher I was prompt to ask "very low tolerance", but the job is receive vague problems and deliver specific solutions. You are saving my preparation.

[smalin]

In my first job interview, the interviewer didn't ask this question --- he told me that I had a high tolerance for ambiguity.

[alexr]

A former boss told me that one of the things that he liked best about my work was that when I wanted his input, I already althready thought through the pros and cons of several ways of solving whatever problem that I had encountered. I would then ask him whether he had any thoughts on how I could proceed. He generally agreed with me, but once in a while he would have a far better solution or he would have a reason why one of the solutions that I had less faith in was more likely to succeed. My boss liked that as he put it, I showed initiative and did a lot of the hard work of finding potential solutions before asking for his input. It saved him time and effort.

[somemore]

Interviewer: What's Your Tolerance for Ambiguity?
Me: Leaves room.

[alvarocarrilho]

Working in the creative industry (as a art director and graphic designer) this topic is so relevant. Briefings are - most of the time - ambiguous, populated with vagueness expectations.
The core activity is to navigate from chaos to order, from objectives to emotions. As you grow in this business, we have to embrace ambiguity, and YES!... «figure out the details» by ourselves.
I Love the way you described 20 years of struggle in AMBIGUITY
Cheers From Lisbon - Portugal

[krissykri]

While I've yet to be asked this question, your video really helped me to better highlight my capabilities. My all-time favorite job was as the lead teacher for Toddlers at a Pre-School/daycare. There were no set lesson plans everyone used. You were expected to come up with your own that best fit you and the children in your care while also following health and safety guidelines and requirements. This allowed me to use my creativity and research savvy to not only create lesson plans each week, but I gained more education by obtaining my CDA (Child development associate) by taking the initiative and showing up for a class that was "full". Several students accepted were no-shows and they allowed me to take the full course. 9 months later I had my CDA and had strong confidence in my ability to come up with fresh ideas each and every week. I've been looking for that kind of company to work for forever since it closed down.

[richardreinertson]

My answer to this question would be, "Could you be more specific?"

[Jollyprez]

I use the term "finish line" for ambiguous projects - something along the lines of, "At x job, specifications were anathema to the boss. It was up to me to determine the finish line for projects so we could ship version 1.0. Frequently we vectored in unanticipated directions, based upon feedback and reality - but the finish line was always visible.

[AlergicToSnow]

As a PM the real question is what part is ambiguous. If they want to start up a project but haven’t given any thought to how it aligns with the business vision and associated strategy and goals, then it’s one answer. If they need to implement a defined strategy or goal but aren’t sure of the solution, then I’ve got this. This is exactly what I do as a PM. I am uniquely positioned and skilled to solve this.

[Greywolf]

Ive never been asked this question but good to know

[LiveToFly-Br]

Another term used is "UNCERTANTY", specialy for those applying for jobs related to project management and product development. Sometimes the term " Fuzzy front end" can also be used.

[bec_r_r]

Well they didn’t say ambiguity as such but they gave me an unanswerable question, well I thought it was unanswerable, but it could fall into this category. What they asked me was, if you had two bosses and you were given a task that made you compete between the two bosses, ie you had to make both happy without asking either for help, how would you handle that? I didn’t get the job which is good because that is a weird situation having two bosses. Later people said I should have said, no one can work for two bosses and keep them both happy.

[kicn]

Now i watch your videos not coz of your content but i watch coz its you who is presenting content. You are awesome

[endswellpictures]

Best explanation of how to deal with ambiguity at a work place!

[eric-rounds]

Excellent answer and one that offers solutions and not frustrations.

[jeffprice]

These are great videos. Very clearly stated, I appreciate how you get at the essence of what these common questions are after. Thanks much