Jobs

It is possible to find foreign language jobs in the USA as a customer service representative, teacher, tutor, translator, healthcare professional, accountant, and a variety of other positions for bilingual and fluent speakers of foreign languages. The job boards below display links to multilingual jobs as a nurse, IT worker, and sometimes positions in museums or other unique and interesting places of work. Many businesses need candidates to fill foreign language positions because they aim to help clients in the US who may not know English. Some positions require sophisticated foreign language skills, such as Japanese jobs in foreign companies based in the US. Other positions might include work at a call center, doctor’s office, hospital, store, restaurant, or financial institution. Some of these jobs require specialization in a field such as medicine or education, along with native language skills. The following job boards are updated constantly and display many different types of positions in states and cities across the country:

Whether individuals seek ESL teaching jobs (these require a broad range of teacher training) or jobs based on language skills like Arabic, Russian, and other languages, the positions are out there—but to get them, individuals must be prudent in their search and apply to each and every available opportunity that seems like a match.

Foreign Language Speakers

Here, there are growing numbers of bilingual speakers of Spanish, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese, and English. In California, the number of Spanish speakers will soon outnumber English speakers. In many Texas counties, Spanish speakers have outnumbered English speakers for ages. There are also communities of foreigners who work in the US but do not intend to immigrate–speakers looking for French jobs, for example, often work in the US for a period of years and then return to their home country. Other work is research-based, including German jobs, for example, in which graduate students from Germany come to the US specifically to research a topic and earn a degree before returning home. Though temporary residence is common, immigration (or permanent relocation) brings new residents each year who need services but have not yet learned to speak English—businesses hire individuals who can help them serve these visitors or residents. As these individuals need help, multilingual vacancies increase.

Native Language and Fluency in English

Many individuals are having a hard time finding jobs in today’s economy. However, language jobs are frequently advertised. Individuals from Portugal and Brazil should not only look for their academic and professional skills in certain industries, but also search for Portuguese Jobs. The same for fluent speakers of Italian language from the US or Italy, there are Italian Jobs available in a variety of fields, not just translating. Fortunately, Russian jobs for fluent speakers are also advertised–it’s just a matter of finding them and being a strong candidate!

Tight Job Market

In today’s tough job market, specialized skills can serve any candidate well. Remember that while Spanish jobs are more common, other languages present lots of employment opportunities as well! If you can speak more than one language, think about applying for a languages job that requires English and one or more other languages. Because languages are not skills that can typically be taught on the job, companies must seek individuals who already know languages that need to be used on the job. Individuals who look for technical or creative positions such as IT or 3D work, for example, might find that language skills earn them a spot as a top candidate depending on the company hiring–Sony hires Japanese speakers for their Tokyo office, ILM hires animators for their branch in Singapore, and web companies that do sites for foreign companies sometimes hire foreign designers who are able to handle foreign text and graphics more quickly than a person who has no experience in the target languages. Foreign languages jobs have grown in number of available positions, as well as requirements and target customers—sometimes it isn’t even necessary to know English to hold a position in the USA!