Highlighting Your Bilingual Resume Skills This Year

Bilingual skills are a great addition to your resume and hiring managers are often looking for them. Here’s our tips on how to feature them effectively.

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Bilingual Resume Example

Bilingual Resume

If you have language proficiency in a foreign language, you should indicate this on your cover letter or resume. Hiring managers are often looking for people with bilingual skills, and it can be a great addition to your professional resume. However, you need to know how to effectively discuss the fact that you’re a bilingual candidate and how it can be effective for your job search. Here’s how to create a bilingual resume that will impress your potential employers.

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What Is a Bilingual Resume?

A bilingual resume is a resume for someone who speaks more than one language. Although the name may make it seem like you should write your resume in two languages, you should write the resume in English, then list your bilingual skills on it. A bilingual resume is just the same as any other resume, but it includes a different language listed in your skillset.

How To List Your Bilingual Skills on Your Resume

When listing bilingual skills on a resume, there are a few things you should think about.

Firstly, you should typically list bilingual skills in the skills section. When you only have one second language, including this near the top of your skills section allows a recruiter to see that you can use this skill alongside customer service skills and communication skills.

However, if you speak more than two languages, you might want to create a “Languages” section of your resume where you can include all of your language skills. That way, you can include a number of different languages, all at different skill levels. For example, you might list, “Spanish — Native Speaker; Arabic — Conversational” to indicate your different skills.

It’s also a good idea to show off professional experience and achievements that have used your language skills. Your experience section should include some reference to the fact that you know a secondary language. This is especially true because certain job titles might need more language expertise than others. A bilingual customer service representative may be more in-demand than a bilingual data entry expert, for example.

You should also discuss work experiences that benefitted from you using these skills. When you write your resume job descriptions, you can include some resume examples regarding your additional language skills. Even just a bullet point like, “Go-to team member when a Spanish-speaking customer needed help” indicates that not only do you speak Spanish conversationally, but you were good enough for coworkers to automatically choose you to help with Spanish speakers.

Lastly, mention the fact that you’re bilingual as early as possible. Including something like “Spanish-speaking call center operator” in your resume summary clues the hiring manager into the fact that you speak another language. Plus, it helps tie your work experience in with this skill.

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Tips for Getting a Recruiter To Take Your Bilingual Skills Seriously

Recruiters aren’t going to just accept anything that you put on a resume. Sure, you can put that you’re good at multitasking, but how does a recruiter actually know? Here are a few resume writing tips for proving your bilingual skills:

Take an official certification test
Use a proficiency phrasing for each
Indicate where you learned the language (i.e., if you learned in a class or if you learned from living in an area)

one of the best ways to ensure that a recruiter believes in your skill is to take an official certification test, but this is typically only suggested if you’re going to use these skills in an official capacity. If you just want to showcase that you’ll be able to help with customers who speak multiple languages, it’s best to use a proficiency phrasing indicating how well you speak each language.

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FAQ: Bilingual Resume

Q: Is there ever a good reason to submit a resume in a language other than English in the United States?

Most resumes in the United States should only be submitted in English. However, if you’re applying to a company that presents its services exclusively in another language, or the job listing was itself in another language, you can write your resume in that language for your application. This indicates that the prominent language of the location is that language, so writing your resume in it can help you showcase your skills and communicate more effectively.

Q: Does it count as “bilingual” if I learned additional languages from my parents?

Yes. Even if you’ve never had formal training, but you know the language, you can include it on your resume. Just be truthful about your proficiency level. If the secondary language is not the main language you spoke at home, or it’s been many years since you used it commonly, you might only be considered conversational rather than fluent.

Q: Do I need to put my nationality on my bilingual resume?

No. Nationality is a protected characteristic, which means it’s best not to include that information on your resume. No one needs to know if you don’t speak English as a native language. They just need to know your proficiency in different languages. Include only your language information, not any information about where you were born or raised.

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