Hello,

So I'm out there looking for a dpt lead and I get this applicant who is very energetic, very passionate, from a different industry, but English is not his native language.

I interviewed him earlier today.

When interviewing applicants with ESL, what do yall look for to make sure he can understand and do the job?

I used to work in the semi-conductor industry, and I would say well over 50% of our department was from outside the US (our company was based in Santa Clara California), many were from Asia. Since I was a software engineer, I would often interview people applying for programming jobs. It took me some time to develop an interviewing strategy, but what I eventually started doing was asking candidates to explain some well-known algorithms and also explain solutions to problems that they had come up with. Basically, ask pretty technical questions. The idea wasn't to make them uncomfortable or anything. You want to ask questions that they should reasonably know. And even if they don't know everything, they should be able to answer some of the questions. I've seen a lot resumes with tons of buzz words on them, but when you actually start to ask questions, some candidates seem to know very little.

In your case, you would also get them into a technical discussion in English, which I think would tell you a lot about how well they will interact if they get the job.

Here's kind of a funny story which isn't directly related but anyway …… We had this candidate from India who had the most insane resume that we'd ever seen. He had degrees from MIT, Stanford and Berkley. He was also a track star and had worked for the CIA. He was supposed to be an AI expert. This guy I didn't get to interview since I was still a tech at the time. He was hired instantly by the head of our department, and nobody really checked his credentials. Basically, he was a good talker that knew many buzz words and presented himself very well. After he was hired, he was given free rein to find projects.

At one point he came to me and said he had heard I programmed in assembly language, which was in fact my job at the time. When I said yes, he asked me “what's that like?". I was a bit surprised that he had never at all encountered it in his studies, so later I asked him what languages he knew? He said only LISP and he was very rusty, as all his work was theoretical. I was shocked and actually told him to his face “I don't believe it". I talked to a couple managers but they kind of blew me off, so I let it go. A few weeks later the head of the AI department met with him and got suspicious. Turns out all his degrees were in fact bogus, as well as everything else in his resume. I guess if you're going to lie, lie big! LOL! At least he got a fat paycheck for a few months.

I'm not an English native speaker, but I worked for a few companies where it is a primary mode of communication. So, I guess my opinion is relevant.

A few points:

• For non-natives, in technical positions (I have no idea what is DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy?...), it's quite common to have excellent reading skills, and decent writing, but poor verbal communication. That's a matter of practice: programmers read English documentation daily but don't get to speak unless they specifically go to courses. It quickly gets better, as the basics of language and vocabulary are already there, so give him some slack. Given that this person is seeking a leadership position (which usually involves a lot of talking), maybe ask him to refrain from explaining complex concepts during meetings, and communicate them via e-mails/presentations for a period.
• As pointed out in the previous comment, “just talking with them” is enough to gauge communication capability (under the disclaimer of my previous point). If he understands you and communicates back what he thinks, then the language should not be a problem at all.
• A random note: some technical terms do not translate directly between languages. Not a very technical term, but for example, the “at” symbol ( @ ) is pronounced locally “duckling” in Greek, “little dog” in Russian, and “monkey's tail”, or just “monkey” in several other languages. So, the person may struggle a bit with naming special terms properly for some time. Expect to extract some lulz from that, btw.

I'd say, that being passionate about what you do is hard to come by, especially now. I see more and more people working for a paycheck and doing exactly what they are asked for without any initiative or ambition (at best), and malevolent slackers who will gossip and clandestine you out of the company if you point at their uselessness, at worst (or, maybe I am just becoming old and grumpy, and the portion of these people does not change).

So; if you are looking for a long-term partnership, ~one month of potential miscommunications, is negligible. Language should not be a deal-breaker here. If it is for some reason - send him on a two-week language training camp or something. Where there's a will, there's a way.

There was a great talk at GDC about managing international teams a few years ago. See if you can find it in the GDC Vault.

rampeer said:
DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy?.

no,

Department

GeneralJist said:

rampeer said:
DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy?.

no,

Department

You need to be extremely careful with assumptions specially arround abbrieviations because that is not common in other languages, you are better of writing everything out so every one is on the same page. This is often especially true for math related stuff, most people learn this in their native langage and it doesnt mean they dont understand you they might just not know the term but do know the concept.
I worked with a person from Japan that moved to Sweden without knowing Swedish or English, he was really good at his job and the langauge came afterwards. If people want to make soemthign happen they will find a way and tools like google translate go a long way already nowadays.

GeneralJist said:
rampeer said: DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy?. no, Department

? Yeah, I don't know if I'm too tired or have just been bombarded by too many TLAs but I read “dpt” I figured some kind of graphical component or programming methodology I haven't heard of. English is my first language so… yeah miscommunications happen.

kseh said:
I read “dpt” I figured some kind of graphical component or programming methodology I haven't heard of.

The standard abbreviation of “department” is “dept.,” so your confusion is totally understandable.

Right,

So i decided to bring him on, and ssee how he performs.

Thanks for yalls perspectives.