Do you speak the language of success?

Do you know your soll from your habenbuchung? Or your addebito from your accredito? Do your registres comptables always balance? Would you know if you are caja-rich?*

If you do, you are probably in demand. A recent survey by Warwick McLintock Search and Selection found that only 5% of newly qualified chartered accountants speak a second language, to a level of fluency required by potential employers.

Accountants with a recognised UK accountancy qualification and language skills are sort after by UK and US multinational corporations investing abroad. Anglo-American companies are often uncertain about the quality of foreign accounting and business qualifications.

Keith Griffiths, managing director of Warwick McLintock recruitment, said: ‘Accountants who speak Eastern European or Chinese languages are among the most in demand at the moment. These regions are the fastest growing markets for multinationals.

‘But there is also an ongoing need for accountants with major European languages,’ he added.

According to Geraint Evans, director in charge of international recruitment at Douglas Llambias, German is a very useful for accountants who have designs on working in central and Eastern Europe. The local languages in the region have a similar grammatical construction to German and a lot of central and eastern Europeans traditionally speak German as a second language.

French is still in demand, but, since it is one of the most commonly spoken second languages in the UK, command of it is less attractive to an employer than a more unusual linguistic skill.

Accountants who want to use their language skills usually have the choice of two roles. They either work from the UK head office in an operational review capacity, or are based in a foreign subsidiary in a financial controller position

Willingness to travel is the key to operational review roles. ‘They often involve as much as 80% foreign travel,’ said Evans.

For job candidates who are considering one of these roles, but whose language skills are a little rusty, it might be a good idea to go on a refresher course before you start looking seriously. As part of the interview process, you are often required to conduct a telephone interview in the foreign language.

Employers are particularly interested in accountants who have had exposure to business vocabulary in their second language. There have been instances where candidates have been asked to translate a complete set of foreign accounts. If you are going to work as an offshore accountant, I guess it helps to know your actifs from your passifs.

* Soll and habenbuchung are German for ‘debit’ and ‘credit’ respectively; addebito and accredito are Italian for the same words. Registres comptables is French for ‘books of accounts’, and Caja is Spanish for ‘cash’. Actifs and passifs are French for ‘liabilities’ and ‘assets’ respectively.