You’ve no doubt heard that language skills can enhance your career – the more languages you speak, the better. But why is that so? How can you leverage language skills to your advantage? Should you always include your language skills on your resume? If you only know one language, should you take up learning another?

Describing language skills on your resume can be a challenge. Below, we will discuss why businesses like it when you speak more than one language. We’ll also consider how learning a second language affects you as a person (i.e. your soft skills), and how to describe them on your resume.

Why Businesses Need Your Language Skills

Businesses often seek multilingual employees because the skill is useful or necessary in communicating business to business, within the company itself, or with clients/customers.

Our world is increasingly globalized. Trade, technology, and instantaneous communication make interchanges with those who speak a different language inevitable, even vital. Consider some of the following scenarios.

• A business sources products or parts from manufacturing facilities located in another country.
• A company sells its products to retailers in a different country.
• An organization is located in a multilingual area; its employees and customers speak various languages.
• A business hires experts or skilled laborers from another region or country.
• A company needs instruction manuals or advertising copy written in several languages.

In these and other circumstances, companies may want to have employees fluent in the pertinent languages on-hand to conduct business or translate.

While multilingualism is common in many parts of the world, it is less common in the United States. Expressing your language skills could give you a leg up against the competition when you are seeking employment or promotion.

How Language Skills Shape Your Soft Skills

Knowing more than one language does more than give you an extra resume skill – it changes the way you think and feel about the world around you. 

People who are multilingual have opportunities to communicate and interact with others from diverse backgrounds. This allows them to develop soft skills like empathy and cultural sensitivity – recognizing differences without classifying them as positive or negative.

Indeed, picking up a second language can even help you to “think outside the box” or “see the big picture.” Why? We use language to frame our experiences, but every language is different – some have more descriptive words for colors, ages, or family relationships, for example.

So, as you learn a second (or third, etc.) language, you also learn how to view the world through a different lens. This can open up new ways of thinking, enhancing problem-solving skills.

You can describe how you’ve used these skills in the bulleted descriptions in your resume’s Work Experience section.

Your language skills can also help you make a name for yourself as a beneficial power player – a leader who seeks to motivate their team and ask big, important questions. How do language skills accomplish this? It may be by breaking language barriers or simply by your expanded thinking, as discussed above.

How to Describe Your Language Skills

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the phraseology you may encounter regarding language skills.

• You are bilingual if you speak and understand two languages.
• You are multilingual if you can use two or more languages.
• You can consider yourself a polyglot if you speak more than three languages. Polyglots typically learn languages for the love of doing so, rather than the need to speak them for business or in the community.

Remember, simply saying that you are bilingual or multilingual is not enough on your resume – and your reader may not be aware of what a polyglot is. You need to specify which language or languages you speak. 

You can do this in your skills section or devote a section entitled “Languages” or “Languages Spoken.”

It is also good to describe your proficiency with the language. You might use a phrase such as “Can read, write, and speak [insert language here]” or you may describe your skill as fluent, elementary, intermediate, advanced or native speaker.

Should you always include your language skills on your resume? If the company to which you are applying is international in scope, if a language skill is required in the job description, or if you will be in a public-facing position, the answer is a resounding yes.

If a position is particularly competitive, don’t hesitate to include your language skills. This could give you the boost you need to outshine the competition. The same is true if you are new to the workforce and have a scant resume.

What about programming languages? While it is true that most businesses need skilled programmers, we’re not discussing computer languages like JavaScript or HTML here – this article refers only to spoken or sign languages.

Key Takeaways

Multilingual employees help businesses communicate with other businesses, with customers, and even within their own ranks. You can include any foreign languages you speak on your resume and boost your opportunities in your working life. 

Be the employee that people come to for help understanding an international colleague, or when they want to learn more about the cultural influence of a language.