I really love it when I hear reports of how important language skills are for getting a job nowadays. The debate surrounding the value of learning languages increasingly seems to point to the fact that they help graduates to be successful in finding work. Although I cannot testify from personal experience to this being true in the UK, I know that my language skills definitely helped me clinch my first post-graduation job overseas. In addition, being a native English speaker has been invaluable in creating other opportunities since I moved to Paris to find work.
I have spoken to people who doubt the importance of learning languages, and with English spoken by millions of people across the world you can see that there might be something to their argument. However, I still believe language skills can be a useful addition to the CV of any grad, and it seems I am not alone.
Research carried out by the National Centre for Languages suggests why languages make us more employable – take a look at Languages Work, a website offering information on careers using languages, or the National Centre for Languages for more information and specific tips on which languages make you most employable.
If, as is the case for me, reading job adverts is becoming an annoyingly regular occurrence in your daily routine, you may have noticed how often languages are either a "minimum" or "desirable" requirement for applications. The likes of the Financial Times and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, as well as numerous NGOs, often look for people with additional language skills, while in the context of international industries, such as finance, it is often expected that candidates can speak at least two languages fluently.
Being able to speak the lingo of another country definitely opens doors – I got an internship on my year abroad, as well as my current job, based on my (albeit, not so great) French. I can also now apply for jobs which – because of the fact that I have a single honours, non-language degree – I would have been otherwise unsuitable. Such is the case for several adverts I have seen for work within the parts of the European Union, as well as with international aid agencies; a second language is a minimum requirement and employers look for candidates with a third language.
It might sound extreme, but since having lived abroad and spent time with friends and classmates from all over the world (coincidentally these are the people I could be competing against for jobs in the future), I have realised how common it is to be able to speak at least two, if not three, languages. This is perhaps due to the emphasis that is put on learning foreign languages in the majority of European nations, as well as in numerous countries across the world. For example, the Scandinavians and Germans have a reputation – one that in my experience is accurate - for speaking excellent English. We, on the other hand, have an abysmal reputation for learning languages. Changes to the league table system in the UK could see an increase in the number of students taking GCSEs in a foreign language, but it is too early to tell whether this will really make any difference.
I am also hoping that learning another language will make me more employable in the UK. I have yet to really discover whether this is true, but from the limited feedback I have received in interviews it seems that such skills are well received. At the least, they don't do any harm and at best I hope they make me stand out from the crowd.
Yet, I do have some proof that languages skills are useful in today's job market and I would not have secured a job in Paris without my French language skills. I had not, however, realised the extent to which my experience would be enhanced by the fact that I am a native English speaker. Without any great personal effort, it has been easier to find additional opportunities because English is my mother tongue; I was offered my babysitting job on the condition that I speak English to the kids, I have been paid well to give private English lessons, and the work experience that I do on my day off takes place in an office that can be best described as a mini UN, where, because there are staff members from every corner of the world, English is spoken.
Perhaps it goes without saying, living in a city as cosmopolitan as Paris, that my opportunities are likely to be increased because I am a native English speaker, but it has only dawned on me since living here how much of an advantage we Anglophones really have in the international job market, where English is so regularly used and relied upon as the language of communication. The real test will perhaps come when I attempt to put my language skills to good use in the job market back at home, where "native English speaker" is no special addition to my CV.
Follow Eva on her Parisian adventure via her blog.
