Is your family bugging you to take French in school? Does your family insist you use their native language around the house instead of speaking English like everyone else at school does? If this sounds like your situation, you may think your family members are outdated and annoying, but actually they're trying to preserve their heritage and give you an advantage when it comes to applying for jobs. Job opportunities for bilingual foreigners aren't just limited to driving for a car service from JFK to NJ, you know. Here are some of the exciting jobs you could have if you're bilingual.

International Sales Representative

Being an international sales representative is not like selling clothes at the mall. You would work directly for a major company helping to attract clients and seal deals with people who speak your language. This might mean pitching hair removal products in France or ironing out supply agreements with a sheik in Saudi Arabia depending on what language you speak. If you love to travel, this is a great career choice.

Translator

Translators are needed in a variety of different fields. If you're completely fluent in two languages, you might find yourself assisting the police or military in interviewing foreign suspects or witnesses, creating subtitles and dubbing scripts for movies, adapting your favorite books into a new languages, helping a mortgage company in Canada iron out the details of their merger with a foreign company, or even assisting the participants of an international political conference. All are very important (and highly paid) roles.

Customer Service

If you're fluent in both of the most common languages present in a certain area, you'll have the first pick of all the customer service positions available in that area. Hiring one bilingual person means that Windsor Home Security doesn't have to hire two people who each speak one language. Because of this factor, you can expect to earn half again to twice as much as someone who only speaks one language, even if you're doing the same job. There are a variety of settings you might work in, including customer accounts offices, call centers, stores, and charities.

Social Services

It can be tough for the government to help immigrants who barely speak the national language, so often they look for bilingual people when it comes to staffing community service positions in areas where foreign languages are spoken at home. If you can speak both Chinese and English, for example, you can help a struggling new family get debt consolidation in Mississauga before they lose their home and possibly custody of their children because of their money troubles. You might become a social worker, law clerk, program advisor, or community liaison.