What are my options?People with language skills enter all kinds of jobs, and different issues affect their career choice. Using your language skills may be very important to you, but unless you wish to be an interpreter or translator or language teacher, you will have to consider your career decision more broadly. If your degree is in languages, you will usually need to look at your other skills and interests. Like anyone at this stage of decision-making, you need to consider all your skills and all the things that are important to you in choosing a job, not just your language ability. Even specialist language jobs require many more skills than the ability to speak one or more foreign languages. What jobs would suit me? is a useful tool to help with the career-planning process, or you may want to speak to a careers adviser. People with language skills often look for work in their chosen career field with companies and organisations that have overseas business, customers or links. When choosing employers, this may be important to you. Do your research and find out whether employers have these kinds of connections. Once you are employed, be as proactive as possible. Seize opportunities as they arise, letting people know you are keen to use your language skills and that it is cost effective for them to make use of your abilities. back to top What do employers think?Communication is one of the most frequently mentioned words in recruitment. Studying a language clearly makes you a communicator, both orally and in writing, so employers generally have a positive perception of language graduates. You may also have spent periods of time abroad, gaining an insight into another culture, adapting to new surroundings and people, and working or studying in a team and independently. Employers in all sectors will value these skills and experiences. back to top Remember your other skillsIf you are applying for a post where language use is not your primary function, you should take care not to overemphasise your desire to use your language ability but rather sell it as an extra bonus in addition to your other skills. These other skills include: - communication;
- administration;
- problem-solving;
- analytical ability;
- numeracy;
- IT competence;
- commercial awareness.
Your language ability is a very useful tool, but you need to be convincing about how effective you will be at applying it in all kinds of different work situations.
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