Do you speak English? A decade ago, this question was asked by every recruiter to the interviewee. But today, things have changed, candidates have worked hard to make the recruiter believe that they are well versed with this language. 

There is a huge debate over the importance of this language. It is true that ‘English’ is merely a language and not knowledge. On the other hand, its importance as a business language has grown multi-fold and widely used in the world of trade and commerce. As a result, having an excellent knowledge of English for business has become vital for success in any company. Given the current scenario of remote working, it has become more important for employees to connect over chats or do virtual presentations, meeting in English. 

As remote working is here to stay for a while, the need of the hour is to sharpen our skills with digital tools available in the industry. 

Significance of English comprehension 

The high cost of upskilling: As businesses are ramping up their recruitment at the entry-level, there is a significant amount of upskilling that is needed. Most learning modules are created, keeping in mind the assumption that the employee can understand English, and even if they don’t, these learning modules can be translated into one or two other major languages. The translation is not an option in India which has 22 recognized languages along with hundreds of unrecognized ones. Keeping this in mind, it is easier to hire employees who have good English comprehension, but as mentioned earlier, they are far and few to come by. 

Customers speak English: In today’s global marketplace, consumers prefer to communicate in English over other languages not just because their native language might be English, but it is easier to keep track of orders across various service providers and maintain consistency.

Higher efficiency levels: As English is the official business language, employees who can understand and communicate in English well have a higher efficiency level. It’s easier for them to understand the tasks at hand and execute them effectively.

Sharpening your negotiation skills: Employees who occupy a selling or purchasing role are more likely to perform better when it comes to cracking large international deals or getting better prices during international purchases. Since communicating in English does not require an extra effort for them, they can focus on completing their tasks effectively rather than worrying about how to put their point across.

Lower marketing costs: Companies that conduct business internationally or even PAN India would prefer to create marketing campaigns in one language as creating multiple campaigns in different languages and targeting people who speak those languages multiplies the marketing costs by many times.

Versant is one such tool that will play a vital role in your company’s journey. It is created by leading language testing experts and built on the patented Ordinate testing system, evaluates the English communication skills of people whose native language is not English. Corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions throughout the world use VersantTM to evaluate the ability of students, staff, or employees to understand their ability to communicate clearly and appropriately in English.

Versant saves time and improves the hiring process; it uses the fully automated Versant Tests to screen any number of candidates and makes sure that you interview only those with sufficient communication skills when interviewing time is limited. The tests are simple and intuitive for native speakers and proficient non-native speakers of English. Items have been reviewed for fairness and bias-free usage. 

With digital transformation as the way forward for everything in the business, one should consider Versant as their partner in recruiting candidates with the best communication skills. The below image is a quick representation of how it works.