Most hiring managers check the same box: “Speaks English.” The candidate passes a language test, sounds confident in the interview, and gets the offer.
Then the first week starts. Emails come back unclear. Team calls need a recap afterward. A new process gets followed word for word, and still goes wrong.
The candidate does speak English. What’s missing is working fluency, which is the ability to do the job in English, inside your team, at the pace your team moves.
If you plan to hire bilingual staff for operations or back-office roles, this difference decides whether the hire saves your team time or costs it.
Why a language test isn’t enough
Language tests measure grammar, vocabulary and comprehension. Those are useful. But your team doesn’t run on grammar. It runs on short emails, fast calls, shorthand, and processes that change every quarter.
Language assessment experts draw the same line. ACTFL, the U.S. standards body for language proficiency, separates performance from proficiency. Performance is language that has been practiced in a controlled setting. Proficiency is language used spontaneously, in real situations nobody rehearsed. A test score or a polished interview often shows the first. Your team needs the second.
A test can tell you someone speaks English. It can’t tell you whether they can:
- Write an update your manager can act on without a follow-up call
- Keep up when three people talk over each other in a stand-up
- Spot the line in a new SOP that doesn’t make sense, and ask about it
- Pick up your team’s vocabulary in the first few weeks
Those skills are what you’re actually paying for.
What working fluency looks like inside your team
Emails that don’t need rewriting
A fluent professional writes the way your team writes. The point comes first. Details are short. The next step and its owner are clear. Your managers read it once and move on.
Following a fast team call
Real calls are messy. People use acronyms, switch topics and assume context. Working fluency means following the meaning, not just the words, and leaving the call knowing what to do next.
Asking the clarifying question
This is the most underrated skill on the list. Someone unsure of the language often guesses rather than asks. Someone fluent says, “Quick question before I start,” and saves your team a day of rework.
The Council of Europe’s language framework (CEFR), used worldwide to describe language ability, treats asking for clarification as its own skill, separate from vocabulary or grammar. It’s worth checking for on purpose.
Running your SOPs as written
Your processes are documented for a reason. A fluent professional reads them, follows them, and flags the ambiguous parts, instead of applying a literal reading that creates cleanup work.
How to check for working fluency before you hire bilingual staff
You don’t need a longer language test. You need one that looks like the job.
- Run part of the interview like a real team call. Share a quick scenario, change a detail halfway through, and see if they follow.
- Give a short written task. Ask them to summarize a situation in an email to a manager. Look at structure, not just grammar.
- Hand them an instruction with one ambiguous line. Notice whether they ask about it or guess.
- Use your industry’s vocabulary. A candidate for an AP role should be comfortable with invoices, approvals and matching. A dispatcher should be comfortable with loads, appointments and exceptions.
A candidate who handles all four can work in English, not just speak it.
Where nearshore staffing fits
Finding that level of working fluency locally can be slow and expensive. That’s why many U.S. and Canadian companies now build part of their back-office and operations team through nearshore staffing, with professionals in Latin America who work in the same time zone.
At TCA, we connect North American companies with highly educated, bilingual Colombian professionals across operations, accounting, customer service, sales support, IT and marketing. Every candidate completes a behavioral and cognitive assessment before you see their profile. Once they start, they go through TCA training plus a company-specific onboarding built around your tools and SOPs. We follow up at 30, 60 and 90 days, then with quarterly reviews, so small issues get caught early.
Tell us about the role. See how TCA builds your team, and we’ll help you define the position and find the right fit.