Yes, I agree, give them a test to weed them out.

The way things are getting, a test would likely disqualify some native English speakers. My indep. BMW bike mechanic showed me a paper written by one of his students at the local vocational school. I thought it was a joke. Beavis and Butthead couldn't have done it worse. Wrench said that poor kid will never be able to read a work order or repair manual, but will get student loans for as long as he wants them.

True - but you don't want a native speaker with bad language skills either. IMHO English comprehension and communication are vital in most all jobs. I have worked at companies that did not test for it and others that did and the influence a fairly basic entry test has on the company, including company culture, was profound.

G

This reminds me of the nightmare scenario I experienced years ago when advertising for seamnstreses.Its important that they have reasonable spoken English & good comprehension because all our work is one-offs so every order has different requirements. I was accused by an employee at the employment exchange of being a racist for asking for this , but was assured that I wouldn't be considered so if I requested the same skills in a foreign language such as Swedish. I was also told by this numbskull that I should employ an interpreter if I was unable to speak the language of my very small number of employees. He also refused to take my advert as racist for outworkers because I specified a particular area of the city which they should reside in(chosen by me because it was on my route from my house to my shop) which doesn't have many immigrants living there. I only solved the blocked advert situation only by driving to the regional employment exchange hq and explaining to the area manager that she had one too many employees in my area. She assured me that she would immediately put the guy in for retraining but in the meatime I had endured a couple of days of not getting the advertisement placed and of being acccused of racism( a notion that somewhat amused my Eurasian wife)

Press 1 for English...
 

A little thread bending here:
.
'Ever wonder why a company would have someone answering phones who didn't have command of the English language? I see/hear it constantly. With some companies, I've excused myself several times on 1 call, then call back to get someone else. Virgin Mobile is a huge offender.

The office manager of my endocrinologist is a sweet lady from India, and...

One of my pet peeves!!!

[QUOTE=Don Ro;7213607]A little thread bending here:
.
'Ever wonder why a company would have someone answering phones who didn't have command of the English language? I see/hear it constantly. With some companies, I've excused myself several times on 1 call, then call back to get someone else. Virgin Mobile is a huge offender.
QUOTE]

In Canada you can ask for French and then speak English to them.
Works every time.

Back to the topic though. If you can't communicate with them during the interview, why would you hire them? I like they way you nod and smile!

I don't think English is a requirement to work the drive thru window at a fast food restaurant here in So. Cal.

well how the hell can someone be qualified to do the job if the job requires proper use of english?

customer service, sales, mcdonalds drive thru...all require speaking english.

citizenship doesn't require FLUENT english. only basic english. enough to pass the naturalization interview.

besides...not all legal workers are citizens. plenty of legal immigrant workers.

Back when I was self-employed, I outsourced much of the work. One fellow was a Mexican tree expert who told me about his interview/test. It took less than 45 seconds and the two spoke Spanish - he passed. His English was non-existent (I spoke Spanish to him) and his naturalization interviewer was a Hispanic.

Your Gov't at work, eh?