Speaking an extra language has always had its perks. In many culturally diverse countries, being multilingual can easily make everyday life more interesting. It can get you anything from extra toppings on your pizza order to landing a window seat on your next flight – just because you threw in a sentence or two in French.
In the job market, being multilingual can also add some serious mileage to your career, especially in heavily multi-cultural countries. In Canada, for instance, over 6 million people interact in more than 200 unofficial languages, making the country a prime location for multilingual jobseekers.
Naturally, this presents a ton of opportunities for people with two or more tongues. Finding these opportunities, however, can be quite challenging. Here’s a breakdown of some of the industries that offer rewarding careers for multilingual job applicants.
The healthcare industry is already one of the most lucrative places to be, even without adding the multilingual bit. And in many countries that suffer from a shortage of health professionals, your multilingual skills can put you right at the top of the earnings ladder.
Healthcare practitioners who speak in more than one tongue are often in high demand across the globe. In addition to the regular demand for multilingual doctors, nurses, and medical researchers, there’s a growing demand for professionals in technical fields, including medical alert systems and related areas of medical engineering.
Because most of these equipment often come from Asian countries, the demand for multilingual operators is booming.
Education is another popular industry whose demand for multilingual employees is on the rise. With global strife and instability causing record numbers of immigrants globally, the need for tutors, teachers, instructors, translators, and other education professionals is rapidly going up.
In the US, for instance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the demand for translators will go up by 42 percent over the next 3 years, making careers in this industry some of the most lucrative in the world.
Plus, practitioners in this industry will also have the best chances of success as entrepreneurs, with opportunities in private and online tutoring growing as more people seek to learn a second language from the comfort of their homes.
Marketing is one of the most complex and diverse fields in the modern world. The ability to convince individuals to buy a product or service can often make or break a company, which is why global companies will often dish out six-figure salaries to marketing representatives in foreign offices.
And it’s not just limited to large corporations. Small and medium enterprises are increasingly employing the services of multilingual specialists who can communicate fluently with native communities in countries where they have a presence.
Therefore, because such individuals are often tasked with sales and the growth of the brand in the foreign market, marketing specialists will be huge assets to companies, especially as the world becomes one big marketplace.
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