Languages for employability

Increasing employability can become something of an obsession with graduates, especially when they find that it’s taking a little while longer than anticipated to get that perfect job. One of the things that graduates often look at is developing evidence of soft skills such as examples of team-work and communication skills, however, one hard skill that is within the grasp of most people is to learn a new language.

Although studies have shown that achieving fluency in another language takes around six years with 103 hours of instruction per year, becoming competent enough in a language to get by can be done in a very short space of time.

The effect that learning a new language can have on a career is surprising and seemingly well-understood by graduates. In a Prospects poll 88% said that they believed speaking another language would help their career.

The local

One person who has witnessed first hand the benefits that another language can bring to a career is Jo Parfitt, author of Career in Your Suitcase and a portable career expert. Throughout her career she has lived and worked in Dubai, Oman, Norway and the Netherlands and she has found that even if you can find work overseas within large multinationals where English is the lingua franca, there are still benefits to picking up another language.

‘You can get away with sticking to English,’ she says, ‘but if you can enjoy a joke with the locals at the water cooler and are seen to make an effort in your attempt to speak the language it can make you more likeable and aid you fitting in quicker. There is no doubt that a language is a real bonus. It's not just the language itself that makes the difference, it's the understanding you acquire concerning the culture and values alongside conversation that can really help you to communicate.

‘They say that you can only truly settle in another country if you integrate with the locals. In order to do that, and to show respect to your hosts, learning the language is the best way to do this.’

Home and away

There’s a tendency to assume that if you go to the trouble of learning another language then it means you will go and work in that country. However, getting a new language can help your career even if you intend to stay in the UK. ‘It depends where you work, but for almost every industry there could be a reason to speak another language, whether they want to trade with other countries, be more welcoming with international visitors or to network more widely,’ Jo says.

If you’re among the 88% that believe that learning a new language could add a new lease of life to your job-hunting then according to Jo you are on the right track, especially when the rest of the nation at large seems to have a very poor track record with learning other languages, something which has got us a reputation overseas.

‘Brits are traditionally complacent about learning languages and are well known for being monolingual. Learning a language can set you apart from the rest and is part of differentiating yourself to stand out from the crowd.’

What to say

Of course the biggest question for anyone considering picking up new language skills is which language you should learn. It could be that you already have an idea of the language you’d like to learn, or perhaps an idea of the destination you’d like to take your career to. However, in an increasingly digital age it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the really useful language skills aren’t even human languages – even a passing awareness of HTML can help in most jobs that are connected to the web. However, Jo says that there’s an out and out winner if you’re just looking for an all-round useful language to learn - Mandarin Chinese. So brush off those Mandarin dictionaries and say ni hao to your new career.

Further information

• Using your language skills

Suggestions to editorial@prospects.ac.uk