Recruiting Strategy
How to hire the multilingual employees that you need
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Hiring multilingual employees is the key to reaching new markets and developing your business. But how can you find the right candidates for the job, when the competition for recruiting talent is so high?
Finding candidates with multiple languages can be challenging, due to the level of competition for such talent. Furthermore, if your HR department does not have multilingual employees, advertising in the target language can be a bit tricky. Multilingual employees bring multiple advantages, among them, reaching new markets and customers in the target language.
Beyond the benefits to your sales department or customer-facing departments, multilingual employees have developed multi-tasking and communication skills. Sourcing and hiring multilingual candidates is the tough part, so here's a few tips for finding the best bilingual hires.
This may seem a little obvious, but when posting jobs, make sure that you advertise in both the language your organisation operates in, but also the language that the candidate is fluent in. It's the simplest way of achieving the greatest reach of potential candidates, in the target language. Advertising on sites popular in the country of the target language is essential for finding the candidates you need. It’s important to state in the job description the level of fluency in languages required.
University recruiting is also a good idea for reaching bilingual candidates. University job fairs can be a great way of reaching international students, with the right mix of linguistic and technical skills for your roles. You may also be able to find modern languages graduates with a good level of fluency in your target language.
As finding candidates with languages can be a bit of a challenge, trade offs can be a necessary part of the recruitment process. You may be able to make up the balance in other areas. There may be skills that you can train, or make a compromise on, whereas full language fluency is essential. Or reasonable written skills in a foreign language may be required, but you cannot compromise on technical, on-the-job skills.
Language testing is quite significant, to ensure the proficiency of your candidate in both required languages. Someone may have native-level fluency in the target language, but may not have business proficiency in the workplace language. Standardised language tests save time and effort in assessing a candidate's language skills, as well as whittling down your list of candidates.
Referrals are always an effective means of recruiting, but even more so when seeking employees with language skills. Existing bilingual employees may be able to refer fellow language speakers in your industry. Colleagues will also be able to vouch for the language skills of the candidate, helping with the assessment process.
Sometimes regional variants of a particular language can be as different as they are similar. Bear in mind how and why a candidate might use their language skills in a role to determine the language level or variety needed. Verbal language assessment from existing employees is a good way of figuring this out.
Tools like LinkedIn can make targeted searches pretty easy. Searching for the specific language and on-the-job skills can make compromise a little easier. By targeting those with the exact skills required, you can reduce the need for trade off, or indeed develop a greater insight on what you actually need.
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