Knowledge of foreign languages establishes unlimited possibilities and constitutes a key qualification necessary in applying for a job – it is not enough anymore for one to be qualified in his or her subject area only. Nowadays, employers expect diverse competences form their jobholders, focusing especially on intercultural skills and one or two second languages.
In times of globalisation more and more companies establish their new locations in foreign countries, where all meetings and negotiations are held in the official language of the company – this is also the case for the correspondence and the official documents. The demand for employees who are able to speak English, German, French, Spanish, Finnish or other foreign languages – while knowing cultural characteristics of the particular country – is on the increase all over the world. Accordingly, perfect linguistic skills are essential in order to be a successful manager, expert or star performer.
English is deemed to be the international business language while German is frequently used in the areas of engineering and finance. More than 60% of European employers demand knowledge of foreign languages due to the fact that financial success depends more and more on those skills. The importance of such skills and competent jobholders is shown via the European survey ‘Elan’, which investigated the consequences of missing linguistic knowledge for companies. Export-oriented companies estimated an average loss of 325,000 Euro per year in the past three years, due to insufficient language skills.
