CHICAGO, October 2, 2007—¿Habla español? If so, you may find yourself in high demand by employers within the next year, according to a new survey by empleosCB.com, a subsidiary of CareerBuilder.com focused on online job search for the Hispanic community. Forty-eight percent of the hiring managers surveyed say they are hiring Spanish-speaking job candidates in 2007 and 2008.
“Now is the time for Spanish-speaking job seekers to capitalize on their knowledge and skill-set,” said Jesse Caballero, senior career advisor for empleosCB.com. “With the Hispanic population growing in number and buying power, nearly three-in-ten hiring managers say they are placing a greater emphasis this year and on into next year on finding employees who can relate to this target audience.”
When asked which segment of diverse workers they will be looking to hire, more than one-in-five (21 percent) hiring managers say they plan to target Hispanic workers more aggressively in 2007 and 2008.
If you do speak Spanish and are in the market for a new job, Caballero suggests the following tips to dazzle hiring managers:
Mention it. Just because it’s listed on your resume doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mention that you speak Spanish during the interview. If you can, weave it into an answer to one of the hiring manager’s questions to showcase how you used this skill as a way to solve a problem or complete a task.
Go deeper than language skills. If you have a deeper understanding of the Hispanic culture through your experiences personally, in previous jobs or through community involvement, be sure to highlight that in your interview. Show the hiring manager that you can bring insights such as consumer behavior patterns or issues that are currently most important to the Hispanic population.
Show your value. Once you have highlighted both your Spanish-speaking ability and your knowledge of the culture, drive home your potential impact on the company by explaining how you can apply your skills to help them improve upon their business. Doing a simple Internet search will allow you to learn how much the company currently focuses on the Hispanic population and can give you clues as to how you can be an asset in creating strategies for the future.
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between June 1 and June 13, 2007 among 2,417 hiring managers and human resource professionals, (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions), ages 18 and over. Results were weighted as needed for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.
All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.
Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the US Employer population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to be invited to participate in the Harris Interactive online research panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
About empleosCB.com
empleosCB.com is a division of CareerBuilder.com, the nation’s largest job site with more than 22 million unique visitors and over 1.5 million jobs. Hispanic job seekers can quickly target job and internship opportunities for their experience-level from the nation’s top employers. They can also post resumes, get the latest news on companies and industries, sign up for automatic job alerts, view local career fairs and tap into advice on everything from writing resumes to on-the-job success. For more information, visit www.empleoscb.com.
CareerBuilder Media Contact
For all media inquiries and interview requests, contact:
Jennifer Grasz
(P) 773-527-1164
(E) jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com