Gap Year Jobs For Multilinguals

Figures from a website focused on teaching abroad reveal that up to an estimated 185,000 young people in the UK took a gap year in 2022, with nearly 30,000 deciding to defer their uni place for 12 months each year.

When you consider the potential benefits, that’s perhaps not surprising. After all, a gap year, either before university or after it, can help to develop transferable skills, provide invaluable life and career experience, and heighten cultural awareness. The resulting experiences also boost confidence and independence.

For many, a 12-month career break is the ideal chance to travel and take in new lands. Most will want to work for at least part of their gap year, for financial and career reasons. And a stint spent working abroad can certainly set your CV apart from the competition.

But if you have some proficiency in a second or third language, you’re likely to find more gap year jobs open to you than to someone who is monolingual. A European Commission study shows one in three employers has difficulties filling positions due to candidates lacking foreign language competencies. So being a linguist won’t just help you get by when you’re overseas. You just need to decide where to go and how to spend this precious time.

There are many language jobs potentially available to those seeing gap year jobs abroad, including in the following sectors:

• Contact Centre Management

Harvard Business Review estimates that turnover in contact centres can be as much as 45%, or roughly double the rate of comparable departments. Other research has shown this figure to be even higher in companies with over 5,000 support agents, so many are rethinking their staffing strategies. One way of doing this is by supporting customers in their native tongue – so if you offer linguistic talent, you’re likely to be snapped up.

• Customer Service Advisor

Clearly, if you’re multilingual, you can communicate with and serve a greater variety of customers, and draw in more prospective clients, making you far more attractive to a hiring employer.

• Administrative & Secretarial

There are some excellent multilingual jobs in this sector. Whether you’re meeting and greeting clients, handling foreign correspondence, translating documents, interpreting, fielding calls or taking messages, you typically command higher pay as bilingual secretary, PA or admin assistant than a monolingual one.

• Accounting

Linguists can obviously connect with clients in a tongue other than English and will be culturally sensitive. And if you work for a company serving global businesses, you’re more likely to be offered more interesting opportunities. Bilingual employees also demonstrate useful transferable skills for the profession, from decision making to an ability to quickly learn about new tax laws and how to apply them.

• Gaming

The online gaming industry is truly international, with games, casinos and sportsbooks built, managed and played worldwide. Yet players want games in their own language. So as a developer, tester or translator, you could find you have access to the best gap year jobs as a speaker of multiple tongues.

• Helpdesk Work

Again, multilingual jobs are typically plentiful in this sector, for dealing with written and spoken customer enquiries from across the world.

• Human Resources

As mentioned above, multinationals need to be able to communicate with staff and customers across the world, and not everyone speaks English all the time. There are numerous stimulating, interesting openings in HR if you’re bilingual and looking for gap year work.

Get In Touch

Talk to us at Recruitment Direct. We are a recruitment agency specialising in multilingual jobs, and have some great opportunities across the UK, Europe and beyond for those looking for gap year jobs. We have vacancies in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and elsewhere, especially in sales and with call centres. Contact us whether you’re after a contract, temporary or permanent position, whatever sector interests you most.

Give us a call on 0289 051 1220 or email info@recruitmentdirect.com to learn more.