The document summarizes a survey of hiring managers about bilingual employees. It finds that while hiring managers think bilingualism is a good quality, they ranked it as the least important of several job applicant qualities. The survey also found that while managers believe bilingual applicants have an advantage, only 27% would actually hire a bilingual applicant over others if qualifications were otherwise equal. The hypothesis that bilingual applicants would be preferred was not supported.

1. The Hiring Process and Bilingual Speakers
Eric Hobbs
MSMK 620: Marketing Analytics
Bellevue University
Dr. Julia Cronin-Gilmore

2. Hypothesis
A company will hire an applicant that knows a second
language over one that doesn’t in cases where all
other major factors are equal.

3. Objectives
1. Gain a further understanding of businesses’ daily operations
2. To learn how much a company values bilingual employees

4. Objective: Gain a further understanding of businesses’ daily operations
Employees spend a majority of
their time at work dealing with
customers one way or the other.
Exactly half of respondents
reported that their company
operates in places where other
languages besides English are
spoken

5. Objective: Gain a further understanding of businesses’ daily operations
Just 33% of hiring managers believe (to
any extent) their company would be
viewed more favorably if it was known
to have more bilingual employees
Only 13% of respondents knew that
their company hired a person or
company to translate conversations,
documents, etc. This reinforces the
idea that there isn’t a need for
bilingual employees

6. Objective: Gain a further understanding of businesses’ daily operations
This question was perhaps the most
revealing part of the entire survey.
Being bilingual was ranked as the least
valuable quality of seven given
options. Given seven choices, being
bilingual had an average rank of 6.29
when 1 was most important and 7 was
least important. Respondents consider
being bilingual a good thing, but not
important compared to other qualities.

7. Objective: To learn how much a company values bilingual employees
A majority (57%) agreed to some extent that
bilingual job applicants had an advantage in
the job marketplace
This would seem to suggest that bilingual job
applicants would have a better chance of
being hired, all else equal

8. Objective: To learn how much a company values bilingual employees
This perceived advantage does
not exist, however. Despite 57%
of respondents thinking bilingual
applicants had an advantage,
only 27% of them agreed to any
extent that they would hire a
bilingual applicant if all other
factors were equal

9. Objective: To learn how much a company values bilingual employees
A vast majority of respondents
work for a business that operates
no further than the Midwest.
This should be considered as the
demographics of more coastal
cities are often different and
could change the results of the
survey.

10. Summary
Based on the survey, we can conclude that hiring managers
think being bilingual is a good thing
Hiring managers think bilingual applicants have an
advantage, but their hiring practices show the opposite
There is no advantage in the hiring process for bilingual
speakers
The hypothesis was proven incorrect