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As many of us know, our world is becoming increasingly globalized. Thus, more companies/organizations are seeking bilingual and multilingual employees. I believe that Spanish, Chinese, and French are the ones, which are most in demand.
I was wondering how much trouble do employers generally have to go through to find bilingual employees? In other words, does the demand for such employees far outweigh the supply?
Do you know anyone who has sought a bilingual employee? If so, what was the process like for them?
In my business, demand far outstrips supply for specific languages (Vietnamese, Hmoung and Spanish are the big ones). It takes a ton of recruiting and usually a bilingual pay differential to find the right candidates.
As many of us know, our world is becoming increasingly globalized. Thus, more companies/organizations are seeking bilingual and multilingual employees. I believe that Spanish, Chinese, and French are the ones, which are most in demand.
I was wondering how much trouble do employers generally have to go through to find bilingual employees? In other words, does the demand for such employees far outweigh the supply?
Do you know anyone who has sought a bilingual employee? If so, what was the process like for them?
Typically demand far outweighs supply. This is also true when you get into skilled positions. I know at our company we had a job posting for about 9 months because we were looking for a bilingual person with a background in survey design (typically involves a specific masters) to take over our South American survey project.
Those types of jobs are when it gets very difficult to find someone that is bilingual and has the specific skillset.
What types of jobs are most likely to be looking for multi-lingual people?
Translators and phone customer service reps in the US. Nowadays, translators - who can make a lot of money, depending on language combination(s), credentials, field of specialty etc. - usually work freelance (complicated job, but lots of freedom and flexibility can be had). Not sure, though, I would want to work as a bilingual customer service rep in the US (mainly Spanish, Canadian French and perhaps a Chinese, or another Asian language) as the pay is quite low.
(PS: Don't forget the State Department employs bilingual people. But few people ever get selected [must pass rigorous language tests, psychological tests, etc].)
Most of the good jobs for bilingual people go to people who are native speakers but live in the United States and happen to be working in that field. When companies can't find something, it's because they want an unusual language, and want to match it with a very particular background - i.e. "must have native-level Turkish with PhD in hydrodynamics..." Because of the randomness of the need and that fact that one must actually have native-like language, there is no way that a person can study a particular language or field and be guaranteed a good job market. So the whole point is moot.
Thank you - I do think normally you need another skill for languages to be useful, unless you speak pretty flawlessly and can interpret. I have only used languages at 2 positions in the past (flight attendant and int'l publishing) and don't use them at all in my work now unfortunately.
Translators and phone customer service reps in the US. Nowadays, translators - who can make a lot of money, depending on language combination(s), credentials, field of specialty etc. - usually work freelance (complicated job, but lots of freedom and flexibility can be had)
Do you mean interpreters? I always thought there was a lot more work for interpreters rather than translators. If you do mean translators, I wonder what the credentials would be?
I have my own business, so have flexibility, and would love to do translation on the side if it was well paid - or maybe that's not something that people really do on the side? I had thought of applying as a per-diem court interpreter, but it seems stressful. Spanish is my best language but there are tons of bi-lingual spanish-english speakers in NY. My French, Italian and Portuguese are good, but maybe not good enough for that type of position.
At my former company, we usually have good luck getting BYU grads that served their LDS missions (Mormons) in foreign countries. Most of them have great work ethnic and have mastered the language after serving for 24 months abroad.
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