The 2020 U.S. Census unveiled a significant growth of people who identify as multilingual and multiracial. In 2010, it was 9 million people nationwide, and in 2020, 33.8 million – a 276% increase. The U.S. is becoming a very diverse marketplace and access to global consumers is a viable growth strategy for many businesses thanks to technology and innovation. From a Human Resources standpoint, this poses a need for multilingual or bilingual employees for many business roles, especially in departments that require communicating regularly with non-English speakers.
Bilingual and multilingual employees create more meaningful and connected consumer engagement by facilitating understanding, answering questions, or mitigating any issues that may arise in the customer’s language of preference. Bilingual and multilingual employees can also help navigate the linguistic and cultural nuances of your target markets.
Recruiting and hiring bilingual employees
The “in-language” delivery of marketing, community relations, philanthropic, and procurement messaging through staff that is proficient in several languages is a fairly simple business strategy to implement, helping companies expand into new diverse consumer markets and building new relationships with community partners and suppliers.
Here are 4 steps that can help you begin multilingual and bilingual recruitment.
1. Identify Language Gaps
It’s important to first determine the language gaps of the business enterprise by identifying which jobs require bilingual or multilingual employees, what type of language skills are needed (reading, writing, speaking, listening, or all four), the percentage of work that will need to be conducted in the target languages, and clear goals for the multilingual teams.
2. Describe Multilingual Roles
Once language gaps have been identified, it’s time to develop job descriptions for the bilingual roles being created in the organization. This step requires specifying the type of language skills needed and the minimum level of language proficiency for each bilingual role. Language Testing International (LTI), with a group of Industrial and Organizational psychologists, developed the LTI Task Analysis process to assist companies in establishing minimum proficiency levels for bilingual positions.
3. Assess During Bilingual Recruitment Process
Once the minimum level of proficiency for each role has been clearly identified, you are ready to select appropriate language proficiency assessments and begin incorporating language assessment into your recruitment process. You can do so by partnering with a reputable language assessment provider, such as Language Testing International. Through an understanding of the client’s goals, LTI develops the best language assessment plans to meet the assessment and reporting needs of each client and their test candidates.
4. Source Multilingual Candidates
The finalized job descriptions should contain key words that will attract ideal candidates, such as “bilingual” and “language proficient in…,” mentioning the particular language(s) of interest. There are several bilingual job boards where you can access a pool of bilingual talent. Following is a list of platforms your can use to place employment opportunities and source bilingual and multilingual talent:
- https://www.bilingualcrossing.com/
- http://www.hispanicjobs.com/
- https://www.diversityjobs.com/
- https://www.ihispano.com/
- http://www.jobline.net/esp1.htm
- https://www.latpro.com/
- https://www.ziprecruiter.com/
- https://www.indeed.com/hire
- https://www.monster.com/
LTI is the exclusive distributor of the internationally recognized proficiency assessments developed by ACTFL. As world leaders in the direct assessment of language proficiency in speaking, writing, listening and reading, we currently offer testing in over 120 languages. LTI has organized and administered proficiency assessments for numerous Fortune 500 companies and small businesses, as well as countless universities and government agencies across the globe. We administer nearly a million language proficiency assessments each year.
For more information about how LTI can support your efforts to recruit qualified and certified bilingual and multilingual employees, contact us today.
Resources:
Jones, Nicholas, Marks, R., Ramirez, R., & Rios-Vargas, M. Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html. August 12, 2021.
Passel, Jeffrey S., Lopez, M. H., D’Vera C. U.S. Hispanic population continued its geographic spread in the 2010s. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/u-s-hispanic-population-continued-its-geographic-spread-in-the-2010s/. February 3, 2022.
Rajghatta, Chidanand. White population falls below 60% amid browning of America. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/white-population-falls-below-60-amid-browning-of-america/articleshow/85278338.cms. August 12, 2021.
