International Recruiting - Why you need to watch your mouth.

Posted by Jim Stroud

February 20, 2006

Here is an interesting article on Competitive Intelligence I found over at Researchzilla. What caught my eye was how his assertions on gathering intelligence from a non-English speaker bear a direct corelation to international recruiting. I think he makes a good point.

Here is a snippet…

At the recent Online Information Conference I co-led a round-table session on Competitive Intelligence with fellow AIIP member, Amelia Kassel of MarketingBase. One of the topics that came out was about international research - and language differences.

My thoughts on this are clear: when doing international primary research you usually need somebody who knows the country and local idioms intimately. It is not enought to assume that everybody speaks English as they don’t.

Interviewing a non-native English speaker in English is a recipe for disaster. First, it is often difficult to develop a rapport and an atmosphere of trust. The interviewee may have suspicions at the back of their mind that can be difficult to allay. Even though it may seem as though the interview is proceeding well - with quality information being gathered, things may be missed. More importantly, restricting research to English speakers, for example, will mean that many other potential local language sources will be ignored. Both of these could be important and it is irresponsible for a (so-called) competitive intelligence expert to claim that they had quality interviews when they didn’t (and couldn’t).

READ: Watch your language - how dialect and local language can impact research efficiency.

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