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Greatest & craziest jobs for polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| JasonBourne Groupie United States Joined 5562 days ago 65 posts - 111 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 25 of 57 12 March 2010 at 1:10am | IP Logged | ||
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CIA (specifically the Directorate of Operations) by a mile
Despite their negative reputation, it's still an awesome job. It's not as exciting as the movies but you DO get to travel the world (good places and bad), directly or indirectly stop terrorists and nuclear proliferation, and you'll learn at least 2 or 3 languages to fluency before you retire. And all on Uncle Sams dime. What could possibly be a better job? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cherepaha Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6399 days ago 126 posts - 175 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Polish, Latin, French | Message 26 of 57 12 March 2010 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
I can think of a number of reasons why it would not be a great job. To name just a couple: 1. One has to share in the ideas held by the powers that be and inherited by the office of the CIA director of ops about what the proverbial greater good is. It'll be extremely difficult and, in fact, most likely impossible to perform this job (think of all the polygraph testing one has to undergo before getting the position), if your ideas of the greater good were clashing with what you had to do for work on the regular basis. 2. If one holds any citizenship in addition to the U.S. citizenship, one would be forced to renounce it along with allegiance to any other nation or state in order to qualify for the job. The thought that in doing so one is preparing for a situation where one will act with an intent to harm their other homeland can easily be morally unacceptable to a person, no matter how many languages one can learn on the job. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5232 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 57 13 March 2010 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5551 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch | Message 28 of 57 13 March 2010 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Foreign language skills all by themselves will get you nothing except maybe non-technical translation work.
Realistically? 1. Get a skill or profession, like engineer, medical, technical 2. Focus your job applications on companies with international business (although it's no small matter to get a job anywhere these days). 3. Take a low level job if necessary to get your foot in the door. 4. And then wait, work hard, and position yourself to move. If you have any influence on your career path, try to pick projects to work on with international connections. It takes hard work and motivation, like anything else. I don't know about anybody else, but after 5 years of Spanish the CIA wasn't exactly beating down my door to get me to apply. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 5850 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 29 of 57 17 March 2010 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sales manager or team quite a few in my company speak German or French and tend to travel to other countries alot to meet customers.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| starst Triglot Senior Member China Joined 5324 days ago 113 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: FrenchC1, German, Norwegian | Message 30 of 57 18 March 2010 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
As someone who has a strong technical background and currently works in a big international company, my personal experience is that positions such as marketing, sales, consulting etc, can lead you to so-called "international" environment more easily than pure technical positions such as engineer. After recent economy crisis, our company prefers that engineers do the communications via video conference. There is almost no chance for below-manager level technical engineers to go abroad on business. Edited by starst on 23 March 2010 at 6:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| crackpot Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6111 days ago 144 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 31 of 57 19 March 2010 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Canadian ambassador to the EU.
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| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5551 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch | Message 32 of 57 20 March 2010 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||
That's a good point. I think what you describe is probably more frequently the case. What's sometimes frustrating (I say this as a technical person) is that the sales and manager types who are able to take international trips are sometimes incapable of providing the technical details and expertise that maybe a lower level person would be. I say this having been the victim of more than one "talking suit" who made promises his engineers couldn't keep.... 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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