I'm confused by exactly what level of language employers are talking about when they write "proficient" or "excellent" in the job ad. I know this means you don't need to be fluent but do they mean you need to be pretty darn close, or is it basically a euphimism for fluent? Would this be a C language level or might B2 pass? If anyone could shed some light on that..but my main question is have you ever had a job interview conducted in a foreign language you weren't 100% confident speaking in? How did it go and how did you prepare for it?I'm at a B2 level in both French and Spanish (the interview will be conducted in both) and I can express myself fairly well with a few awkward pauses and stumbles, but not with the ease and lifelong's worth of vocabulary I have in English.
Since French is your native language I reckon you'll be fine, no need to sweat it.
This is a shared account. But thank you for stalking my partner's posts.
Excellent in my opinion needs to be C1. And that being said, it depends is the C-1 level oral or vocab wise. That makes a difference as well. Fluent or mother tongue criteria for a job is of course clear that B2 is not even close. But give it a shot and practice at home. Nothing to lose right?
If they require your French to be "proficient" or "excellent", then you need to be practically fluent. Otherwise, they would ask for "good working knowledge" of the language. If you meet all of the other requirements in the job description, you could just be honest about it. Unless it's for a UN job - since you will be screened out automatically based on your language abilities (among other things).
I've had job interviews where the interviewer just switched languages half-way through a question and wanted me to reply in the new language, so that's what you should expect here. Same for the written tests - one answer in English, another in French.
On my resume it's written conversational for my foreign languages and nothing else. I'm sure they understood that to mean that I'm not fluent?
Not stalking: if you (or your partner) recall, I was one of the participants in that thread and it has stuck in my mind.
I don't know what the current policy is - but when I was a mod, shared accounts were strongly discouraged for exactly this reason. It creates pointless extra confusion. If you plan to keep this one going, maybe at least add a note to your profile to clue folks in.
This thread might be of interest to you - I didn't get an interview in the end so can't tell you about that, but there's lots of helpful advice from other people.
"Stilsichere Deutschkenntnisse" - er, that's higher than B1, isn't it?
Thanks, most people seemed to encourage just going for it. If anything it'll be good experience to practice my interviewing skills in a foreign language.
If you've already applied and have been invited for the interview, then maybe their language requirements are flexible, so just prepare well for the rest of the more technical stuff, and see what happens! They might not find the perfect candidate and decide that your skills are good enough (and you can always take lessons later on).