Multilingual Interviews: How to Interview Candidates in Their Own Language

Run the first interview in the language the candidate speaks best. If the job is done in another language, test that language on its own, with a few questions that match the real work and a level you set before the interview. Mixing the two turns every answer into a language test, and you lose the information the interview was meant to collect.

A first round in a candidate's second language mostly measures how comfortable they are in that language under pressure. Their experience and judgment get lost in the translation they do in their head.

Why the interview language changes the result

Most working adults are not fully at ease in a foreign language, even when they list one on their CV.

• In the EU, 25.3% of adults aged 25 to 64 said they knew no foreign language at all in 2022. Of those who knew at least one, only 28% said they were proficient in their best foreign language (Eurostat, Adult Education Survey 2022).
• In the United States, 22% of people aged 5 and over spoke a language other than English at home in 2017 to 2021. 62% of them also spoke English "very well", so the other 38% spoke it less than very well (US Census Bureau, June 2025).

How a candidate sounds also shapes how they are judged. A 2024 meta-analysis of 22 studies with 3,615 participants found that applicants who spoke with a regional or foreign accent were rated as less competent and less hirable than standard speakers, even when their answers had the same content (Schulte et al., Applied Psychology).

When the interview should not be in the candidate's language

Some jobs are done in a specific language. A support agent who answers English-speaking customers needs English. A sales role for the German market needs German. In these roles the language is a requirement like any other, and you should check it.

Check it deliberately. Decide which language the job needs, at what level, and for which tasks, then test exactly that.

Role	Language the work needs	How to check it
Warehouse shift lead in Germany	German for safety briefings, the team's language for the rest	One question in German about a safety handover; the rest in the candidate's language
Customer support agent for UK customers	Spoken English with customers	Two English questions that simulate a call: a delay and a refund
Software engineer on a team that works in English	Written and spoken English for reviews and stand-ups	One English question about explaining a design choice to the team
Field sales rep in Mexico	Spanish with clients	Interview in Spanish; no separate check needed

How to run a multilingual first round

1. Set the language requirement for each role

Before you write questions, put that requirement into one line per role. "Fluent English" on a job post tells candidates very little. "Explains a delivery delay to an English-speaking customer on the phone" tells them, and your interviewers, what will be tested.

2. Write the questions once and keep their scope

Write the question set in one language. When the interview runs in another language, the question should mean the same thing and ask for the same evidence. Loose translations drift: a question about "a project you led" can turn into "a project you worked on", and the bar drops for some candidates without anyone noticing.

3. Score every language on one rubric

Use the same criteria and the same scale for every candidate, whatever language they interviewed in. Score the evidence in the answer: the situation, the decision, the result. Do not score accent, grammar or how polished the phrasing is, unless language is the criterion you are checking.

4. Check the job's language on its own questions

Put the language check in dedicated questions and give it its own score. Ask questions that look like the work, such as calming an upset customer or explaining a trade-off to a colleague. A candidate can be strong on the role and borderline on English, and your team should see both facts separately.

5. Share the notes in one language

If the interview runs in Portuguese and the hiring manager reads English, the manager needs the evidence in English. Keep the candidate's own words next to the summary, so a reviewer can check what the candidate actually said.

6. Tell candidates what to expect

Say in the invitation which language the interview runs in and whether any questions will be in another language. Candidates prepare better, and nobody is surprised by a language switch in the middle of an answer.

Mistakes that make multilingual interviews unfair

• Using the first round as a hidden language test. If English matters, give it its own questions and its own score.
• Trusting "fluent" on the CV. Self-reported levels vary widely, so check the level the job needs.
• Letting each interviewer translate questions on the fly. The scope changes from candidate to candidate, and the results stop being comparable.
• Scoring delivery over content. A short, accented answer with a clear decision and result is a strong answer.
• Reviewing notes in different languages. Reviewers end up comparing their own translations of the answers.

Running multilingual interviews with Firstview

Firstview's AI Interviewer runs live voice interviews in 42 languages. Each candidate interviews in their own language, from a phone or laptop, whenever they are ready. You can add single questions in a second language, for example an English check inside a Spanish interview.

Every interview is scored against the same role criteria as CV screening. The report gives a verdict for each criterion with the candidate's own words and the moment they said them, and your team reads it in English or Turkish. Firstview never uses faces or video in the evaluation, and a person makes every hiring decision.

Firstview does not certify language levels. If a role needs a formal language certificate, keep that step in your process.