Language Requirements in English Recruitment Advertisements in Finland : A Duunitori Corpus Study

Abstract

This thesis studies job advertisements from a Finnish job search engine Duunitori. The aim is to study language requirements in ads written in English. The goal is to study what languages employers require and how the requirements are presented. This includes analyzing the order in which requirements are presented and what kind of vocabulary is used to describe language requirements. The analysis is conducted with manual reading and corpus analysis. The corpus is a self-made collection of 120 job ads. The results of the study show that there are both fixed and varied features in language requirements. English and Finnish are notably the most requested languages. They are often presented as requirements, but sometimes as an optional skill. Language requirements are usually expressed in the middle or last when listing requirements in job ads. This, and the limited word count used when listing language requirements can be an indication that language skills are valued less than other skills. Variation is evident when analyzing how language requirements are expressed. A varied vocabulary is used when describing what level of language skill is required or how language is expected to be used at work. Lack of established practices in describing language requirements causes variation which can cause confusion among job applicants. Job ads can be improved with a unified way of communicating language requirements and clear descriptions of how language is utilized in the open position.