Importance of Language Testing - Parrot

Importance of Language Testing

Why is language testing important?

Benefits of Language Testing

In a certain sense, language testing is important simply because language is important. Doing business well always requires effective communication between you, your team members, your customers, and other stakeholders. For that reason, the primary importance of language testing is that it helps you hire people who communicate effectively.

Of course, the relative value of language testing depends on the type of business you do, how much communication it requires, what communities you serve, and how big your existing language gaps are. But with demographics becoming more diverse and new tech transcending geographic barriers, language gaps are becoming wider and causing more harm. If you hire in more than one language, and almost every company does, you need to be doing formal language testing.

Ultimately, the importance of language testing is summed up in a single statistic: each hiring mistake costs the company an average of $15k. That’s more than most companies spend on an entire year of testing. Language testing can save you both time and money, while building the in-house language skills you need to compete in today’s multilingual marketplace.

What does language testing have to offer your organization?

Better In-House Language Skills

Taking a resume at its word is a bad idea, since “fluent” means different things to different people, and language skills are among the most frequently exaggerated claims on resumes. Formal language testing can help you differentiate between different levels of proficiency and make sure you’re hiring the best possible candidate.

More Equitable Hiring Practices

Relying on the subjective opinion of your internal team exposes you to the biases that always come with subjective opinions. When even small biases are applied repeatedly, your language gaps grow, and it becomes more likely that you might be unfairly passing over more qualified candidates.

More and Better Data

With Parrot’s client portal, you can easily manage all aspects of your language testing program. In addition, you can access and download statistical reports that demonstrate the results of your testing program, track your hiring efforts, and help you optimize Parrot’s value to your organization.

Additional Resources

The benefits of language testing for businesses and other organizations have a wider impact than one may think. To read about the importance of language testing for your organization, check out the resources below.

Parrot for Business Info Sheet

Parrot is built to help businesses hire candidates with the language skills those businesses need to grow. Read this info sheet to learn more about how easy your testing program could be.

Language Testing Validity Report

Test Quality & Validity

By combining an innovative methodology with modern tech, we’re creating a new standard evaluating language skills. Of course, none of that would matter if our results weren’t also unquestionably valid. This report shows how we’ve fine-tuned our method to meet and exceed key industry standards for validity.

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