Being Bilingual Can Open More Doors for Job-Seekers

A recent report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics expects the employment of US translators and interpreters to increase 22 percent between 2008 and 2018. As domestic jobs begin to outsource and branch internationally due to the affects of globalization, employers are seeking the means to break the language barrier.

“When you turn on the television, they’re talking about how the market is crashing in Slovakia, how bailing out Greece is going to help us,” said Spanish lecturer Alejandro Jacky. “It gives you an idea of just how interconnected every culture and every community is these days. We live in such a globalized market, and if you want to stay competitive, you have to access all these different global nodes.”
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Speak to Global Customers in Their Own Language

Do you struggle to reach customers beyond your own country’s borders? If targeting clients in other countries seems daunting, there is one simple step you can start with: Translate something.

You have to speak the language of your customers. And that isn’t just an overused metaphor. It refers to actual languages — like Spanish, French, or Chinese.

If you assume your customers speak your language well enough to skip the translation step, you’re wrong. In fact, there is an undeniably strong link between in-language content and a consumer’s likelihood of making a purchase.
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6 Jobs for Bilingual Job Seekers

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the total U.S. population growth between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic population. From 1980-2007, the percentage of people whose first language is not English grew by 140 percent, while the nation’s overall population grew by 34 percent.

As these segments of the population continue to grow at staggering rates, the bilingual workforce will need to grow with them. Bilingual employees have long been in demand in education and sales, but now virtually all job sectors – including retirement, marketing and health care – need bilingual workers.
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The Do’s & Dont’s of Evaluating Language Competency When Hiring

Many 21st century jobs require individuals who have specific skill sets or competencies which can be proven with certifications, ratings, or official measurements. Rarely would it be enough to trust a job candidate to evaluate his or her own abilities as a computer programmer who claims to be proficient in a specific programming language. Nor would it be acceptable to have a current employee ask a few questions to find out if a candidate can handle a complicated, technical, and demanding job.

Likewise, when determining whether or not someone has the foreign language proficiency specifically required for a position, there are certain Do’s and Don’ts that can help guide the process for hiring managers and human resources professionals.
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Is Language Translation of Services a New Banking Trend?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is ordering GE Capital Retail Bank (GE Capital), known as Synchrony Bank, to “cough up” $225 million to consumers who were victims of illegal and discriminatory credit card practices. GE Capital must refund $56 million to approximately 638,000 customers who were subject to these deceptive marketing practices.

In light of these developments many banks and financial institutions are taking steps to protect themselves against increasing regulations initiated by the CFPB for not providing services and disclosures in the target language of their customers. One way would be to translate such items in the specific, native language of its customers. This could likely become a trend and a best practices standard for the banking and financial markets. Outside of the risk of potential fines for unintentionally misleading customers, taking this action will better ensure a more positive customer experience for consumers who speak any language.

Click here to read the full article on CFPB’s fine to GE Capital Water Slide Sea Tema.

Using Language To Land The Job

As the economy continues to slowly improve and unemployment levels drop, more and more jobseekers are finding the task of getting hired less daunting. Unemployment rates in the United States decreased to 5.40 percent in April of 2015 from 5.50 percent a month earlier. This trend signals a slow yet steadily growing confidence in the economy and a positive future outlook from many companies. Now that doesn’t mean a new job will fall into your lap. You’ll still need to get noticed and recruiters, like Michael Ziegelbaum, of Infinity Consulting Solutions in Manhattan says, “Employers are always looking for that extra something in a candidate, even if it’s not required for the role”. That “extra something” could be anything from being proficient in graphic design to even speaking a second language. “These are all things most candidates will leave off a resume, especially if the role doesn’t specifically call for it and that’s a big mistake”, according to Ziegelbaum.
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A Second Language Can Be Your Hidden Asset

Outside of looking for a job, you’ll find that many current jobseekers won’t have the same educational backgrounds, industry experience or job descriptions. However, approximately two-thirds of them do have one thing in common.

Over 31% of jobseekers speak two languages, according to a poll of over 12,000 visitors to the Korn/Ferry International website. An additional 20% speak three languages, 9% speak four languages and 4% speak more than four. Whether companies are conducting business overseas or trying to obtain a larger market share locally, employers are increasingly seeking out bilingual employees, or people with the ability to speak and communicate in more than one language. In fact, a recent CareerBuilder.com keyword search turned up more than 6,000 job postings seeking bilingual applicants.
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Connecting With The Hispanic Market Through Language & Culture

Corporate America has awakened to the monumental importance of the Hispanic consumer and their growing purchasing power, which by end of this year is estimated to reach between $1-$1.5 trillion dollars. Companies are realizing this is a market that can’t be ignored and that if they don’t act now the chance to capture it may be lost. Those who’ve succeeded, went well beyond simply translating English copy into their native language on their website and marketing collateral. These companies expanded their strategy from merely targeting the Hispanic consumer to exploring the cultural characteristics and values that would drive them to trust their brand.
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The Importance of a Writing Proficiency Assessment

Are your employees or potential candidates in need of a writing proficiency assessment? Many candidates come to corporations offering language skills in multiple languages. How do you know, however, if those skills will match the needs of your company? Competing in a global market place – or even just domestically – requires that your employees have the best language skills possible and those skills may even vary from position to position within your company. You may need call center employees with excellent verbal and listening skills. You may also require technical writers that have a strong grasp of English or even other languages for translation abilities. Of the many language skills that employers feel they need to test for employee proficiency, writing is often considered one of the most important and also the hardest to assess. Even proficient language speakers may not be as proficient in the written word as they are verbally and so the writing proficiency assessment can be vitally important.
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Speaking Proficiency Tests

Countless organizations benefit greatly from having multilingual employees. However, there is only one tried and true method of ensuring that your employees have the language skills you need to stand out – Language Testing International’s speaking proficiency tests. As the only company to be licensed by the world-renowned American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), only we at LTI possess the combination of decades of experience and cutting-edge technology to provide the most accurate and reliable speaking proficiency tests you can find.
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