As to bilingual employment, there is the growing need for bilingual workers because of the fact that people from other parts of the world are allowed, for instance, to buy products on the Internet from foreign manufacturers. Thus, these customers need to call customer service of the manufacturer, and in this case the representative who answers the call must know how to speak the language of the customer. If not, then the customer would be frustrated and would opt to not buy the product since he and the representative don’t understand each other. The customer might also tell his colleagues and friends about the experience and shut the company off from a lot of business. This then would result to high production but low income for the manufacturer. Of course, you would not want this to happen to your business.
Looking at basic Economics, it’s always true that when demand is high then supply is low. When bilingual jobs are in demand, there are fewer applicants who qualify for the job position. There are a lot of vacant positions for this job because of unqualified job seekers. Because of this phenomenon, companies need to pay their bilingual employees more or give them more compensation to retain them or else they will leave the company and seek for other higher paying jobs. This means to say that bilingual employees receive higher pay as a result of the demand. This is one of the perks of being bilingual.
Having bilingual sales jobs and marketing will actually help the company earn more revenue because there is understanding between the employee and the customer. Customers’ need will be met because no matter what language they speak, they are understood. Apart from this; bilingual employees have higher chance of being promoted to other positions because they help the company in earning more money. There is always room for advancement.
Many people are actually capable to perform multilingual jobs but only a few are proficient. Proficiency is of at most importance so that they will be a consistent and effective communication. The communication gap should be avoided. To be able to choose who is proficient, certain academes conduct proficiency exams to help the company hire the best bilingual employee. One must be able to differentiate proficiency from performance. If an applicant wants to get the job, he/she must show his/her proficiency. Let’s say for example a person born in Latin-America country, so this person must show evidence of Spanish language proficiency. An individual’s ability to speak in a learned language is what we call Linguistic proficiency. What is performance then? It’s actually the combination of these three forms of communication: presentational, interpersonal and interpretive. A lot of assessments can be done to rate the proficiency and performance of an applicant. There is the American based language academe, the Berlitz which handles English proficiency. This language school usually cater the call center industry where the call center agents will be assessed of how well versed they are with the English language by answering certain types of questions. If the agents pass Berlitz exam then they get hired.
Getting into bilingual careers is not that easy. Aside from the know-how on the technicalities of the language, an applicant is also assessed with her fluency on the language. This is the ability of being bale to deliver or answer/express issues/concerns written texts as well as read the text clearly and correctly. With fluency, there is the easy language flow and there is no gap in between. Right choice of word can also be grouped under fluency. Knowing what word is appropriate for such explanation. Moreover, fluency in bilingual jobs requires the applicants to easily comprehend for bilingual or multilingual employees. One best possible way that they could do this is to tap with associations that represent the specific nationalities like Filipino-American Association. In this way, there is a bigger chance of having employees intact with its group interaction where in it’s really there native language prevalent there.
Nevertheless, having a bilingual customer service jobs require a superb talent and hard work. And since this is an in-demand job, people should start learning new languages. Who knows, maybe someday this will be the number one in-demand job. So start now, start right. Be a performer, be proficient and most importantly be fluent in whatever language you may know. You may find some listings about bilingual industry with the bilingualcrossing.com. There are thousands of listings there that may suit to your career search. Sign up for a risk free trial today.
