Spanish During Interviews?? any experience?

[nicole004]

Another question for you super helpful folks 🙂

My ethnicity is listed as non Hispanic, Latino etc. with languages being English and Spanish.

How has this come up in interviews? Anybody have theirs conducted entirely in Spanish?

thanks in advance!

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[SN2ed]

I have read numerous posts where the medical school would conduct an entire interview in Spanish if it was listed as a known language. If you put down you are fluent in Spanish, prepare to be tested.

 

[Mattabet]

I really doubt that they would ever conduct an interview entirely in Spanish. When they went back to the committee later, it would really throw a wrench in the works. Eg, I asked them 'X', which means 'Y', and they answered 'W', which is kind of like 'Z', and their dialect was Mexican, which is not quite the same as Castillian.

I'm a subfluent Spanish speaker, and listed that on my application, and never had it come up. I'd be surprised if any of my interviewers would have spoken Spanish - it seems like it would have been a hot commodity on the interview trail.

That being said, if you say you're great at anything on your application you should be prepared to defend it. I suppose it's possible they'd throw a question at you in Spanish to determine your level of fluency. But it would be a waste of a half hour to grill you in a foreign language (after all, part of the purpose of an interview is to make sure you're conversant in English).

 

[nicole004]

I really doubt that they would ever conduct an interview entirely in Spanish. When they went back to the committee later, it would really throw a wrench in the works. Eg, I asked them 'X', which means 'Y', and they answered 'W', which is kind of like 'Z', and their dialect was Mexican, which is not quite the same as Castillian.

I'm a subfluent Spanish speaker, and listed that on my application, and never had it come up. I'd be surprised if any of my interviewers would have spoken Spanish - it seems like it would have been a hot commodity on the interview trail.

That being said, if you say you're great at anything on your application you should be prepared to defend it. I suppose it's possible they'd throw a question at you in Spanish to determine your level of fluency. But it would be a waste of a half hour to grill you in a foreign language (after all, part of the purpose of an interview is to make sure you're conversant in English).

Oh okay thanks. I have a good amount of study abroad experience so I'm guessing it would come up.

I'm fluent except for some medical/odd vocab I probably wouldn't be able to come up with in an interview setting. Plus I've never been in a professional Spanish setting so I'm not sure what is appropriate interview language and my accent is very not Mexican...

I'll just not worry about it anymore. thanks

 

[QofQuimica]

Another question for you super helpful folks 🙂

My ethnicity is listed as non Hispanic, Latino etc. with languages being English and Spanish.

How has this come up in interviews? Anybody have theirs conducted entirely in Spanish?

thanks in advance!

I am a native English-speaker but speak Spanish also. I did not ever have an interview conducted completely in Spanish, but I did have two interviewers (at two different schools) conduct parts of the interview in Spanish. One interviewer was a native speaker, and we spoke about one of my ECs. No technical language required, and I said up front (in Spanish) that I had a difficult time discussing my research in Spanish due to not knowing technical words. The other interviewer was a non-native speaker who spoke less fluently than I did, so it was not hard for me to make a good impression. 😉

 

[Ignition]

On my AMCAS app, I realized that I put down Spanish as a language but do not speak it "fluently". I've already submitted AMCAS so there's no way to change it.

If it comes up in an interview, do you think it would be OK to admit to coming to this realization concerning the Spanish language designation on AMCAS after I submitted the app? My speaking skills are mediocre (my writing skills are a lot better).

I don't really feel like I could start using subjunctive etc. in an interview setting without sitting there and trying to go through the conjugations in my head. :-/ And I'd probably make mistakes while talking also.

 

[RevivedPreMed]

I'd be annoyed if they conducted my interview entirely in Spanish. It was my first language but I put it down second after English because I'm much more confident with English. I'm still fluent in Spanish but it gets pretty rusty since only my grandparents speak only Spanish at this point.

I feel like it would be difficult to fully describe my extracurriculars in Spanish. I hope they don't do this.

 

[movax]

My interview with my current employer (auto electronics) was conducted entirely in Spanish and German, by native speakers of each, when I put it down as spoken languages.

Only English spoken was afterwards, dealing with HR stuff/more technical, English-origin terms/words. Pretty sure proving I knew those languages fluently cinched me the job.

 

[SN2ed]

Just to clarify, I meant the whole student interview. The entire interview session consisted of one faculty interview and one student interview. My mistake.