The importance of the English language for Spanish professionals, por Patricia Gil

Although the subject of the title of this post may seem obvious, I believe it is a point which must be encouraged over and over again. To ignore the fact that a professional level of English will give you more job opportunities and a more successful professional career, could be, professional suicide. I am going to tell you why…

Young Spanish professionals entering the workplace have a unique opportunity – to be bilingual in two of the most spoken and important languages in the world; English and Spanish. Although other languages such as Cantonese and Japanese will continue to challenge English, English is still undoubtedly the most important workplace language in the world. It is the language of the seas and the skies, the language of finance and science, the language of business marketing and information technology.

Spanish, on the other hand is now the world’s most spoken language. In the long term this bodes well for Spanish speakers especially in growth industries reliant on the internet, where the amount of Spanish users and content is currently far behind English and Chinese but is undoubtedly set to change, as ´the internet, it seems, is only as big as your language´ . Also, Latin America, where the Spanish language dominates, is slowly developing it’s economy and could present more job and business opportunities in the future, however this is far from certain when the painfully slow recovery of it’s economy and other great problems with corruption and poverty are taken into account.

So, for us Spanish natives we need another language and English is the clear winner between the options. Many interview questions for Spanish businesses and foreign businesses with offices in Spain are now asked in English. In many cases the entire interview is conducted in English. Many companies are investing large amounts of money in teaching their staff English so to control this cost many companies are now only looking for candidates with a high level of English and in many case a recognised title, e.g. Cambridge, has become essential. Afterall if a company has to choose between two great candidates and one speaks English and the other doesn´t it is an easy choice for the recruiter as to which candidate should be hired. The company saves money and avoids the decrease in productivity which can result from staff having to spend their working hours in English classes.

Knowing English opens doors. Having an English version of your CV is essential (in the format recognised by the country of the job you are applying for e.g. styles in the UK and USA are different from each other and different to the accepted format used in Spain). As well as uploading your Spanish and English version CVs to LinkedIn, another important tactic and ´door´ you can open yourself is by having an English language version of your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is a very important tool for all professionals with over 500 million users .

When comparing learning opportunities and future work opportunities in Spain, having English as your second language generally comes out on top. Spain is full of native English teachers and academies, the UK is on Spain's doorstep and with the introduction of cheaper long distance flights, flying to the USA has also now become affordable. Spain also embraces the English language in more of our own culture, from original version films in cinemas across the country to English being used in television and commercial advertising. Also, for those who have Netflix you may know that most TV series and films offer Spanish and English audio and subtitle options, whereas in the UK it is very rare for TV series and films to offer British people Spanish audio and subtitle options.

For Spaniards looking for work outside Spain, where in 2016 the unemployment rate was still an extremely high 19.5%, it is clear that unemployment rates in English speaking countries such as the UK (5.4%), USA (4.9%), Canada (6.8%), United Arab Emirates (where most corporate professional jobs use English - 3.6%) and Scandinavian countries such as Norway where English is widely used (4.1%), show us that opportunities for work are available to us.

We all have a unique opportunity - to become crucial assets for companies in Spain and across the world. This is not only due to learning English but more importantly to possess the powerful combination of Spanish and English languages.

 

^[1] http://labs.theguardian.com/digital-language-divide/

^[1] http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-a-few-important-linkedin-stats/