Proficiency

[GreenArrow45]

This may seem like an obvious question, but, how do companies (not in China) determine if a potential employee is proficient or not in Mandarin? I'm just curious if there is a level on the HSK considered proficient or if its simply being able to communicate about daily subject ect....

Thoughts?

[fanglu]

Mostly people (both Chinese and non-Chinese) don't really understand / have never heard of HSK scores in my experience.

If the employer is Chinese they will just talk to you in chinese for a few minutes and your level should be pretty obvious. I've never worked for a non-Chinese employer, but I once went to an interview where it would have been relevant and he just asked me about my level generally ('how would you rate yourself - proficient, conversational?'). I didn't end up taking the job, but if I had and I really wasn't as good as I'd made out I think it would have been obvious after one or two times interpreting for clients.

[wedge]

Not sure how helpful this is but it really varies depending on the employer and the requirements for the specific position. I think that most frequently they will just ask you about your level and have a conversation with you that's relevant to the job. I've also heard of cases where they sit you down and give you a formal written and oral test. The former is alot more common. I've only heard of the latter in cases of large multinational firms where you have to deal with mainland companies on a regular basis.

I agree with fanglu that most people have never heard of the HSK.

[carlo]

In my experience, it used to be (and it probably still is) that many companies have no idea how to measure (or value) people's language abilities. Some nine years ago, when I was trying to persuade a very hard-headed boss to post me to Beijing, I resorted to making loud phone calls in Chinese during office hours whenever he was in earshot. Years later, he confessed to me that he never believed I could actually speak the language until he heard me speak it over the phone. Funny thing is, I could have been speaking Latin and it would have worked just as well.

Many other times I have seen people chosen as interpreters whose only qualification was a Chinese surname and/or a university degree, with devastating results.

It's much better of course if a Chinese executive is doing the interview, although for a foreign learner it's not always easy to show the actual extent of your abilities (you may be stronger in some areas and weaker in others) and some interviewers may have preconceptions about just how "fluent" a foreign speaker can be. Ideally language test scores should be more widely used, and their predictive ability ought to be improved, but reality is very different.

[Lu]

I've had a few jobs where I needed Chinese skills, and methods to determine this varied. In two cases, I had an actual test, one was conducted rather informally by the company itself, in the other case I was sent to a professional language-testing center. In my current job, the job interview was conducted in Mandarin, even though strictly speaking I didn't need the language for the job.

For many short gigs (translating, interpreting), it's enough to tell the people hiring that you speak Chinese (or are studying it).

[Scoobyqueen]

I would ask the candidate how a Chinese (preferably someone in the same field) rated their level and then ask if that person would be prepared to act as referee. That should then get an honest answer.