Hiring Interpreters: Beyond Certification - Key HR Insights and Tips (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hi everybody, welcome back. I'm Rochelle. I'm Erin. And today we wanted to talk a little bit about hiring interpreters, and particularly from that human resources perspective. Because certification has grown in our field, which is fantastic, gives us a good baseline, there are some complexities and details to it, but we don't want to dig that far today. But we did want to talk about how, as a human resources department, setting up expectations for an interpreting department, bringing on an interpreter as a staff member, where certification fits into that, and some of the pitfalls that you might want to avoid. And we'll also talk about

Speaker 2: how do you kind of broaden that lens, that scope, as far as setting those requirements for individuals to apply for or qualify for a position. So talking about certification to start with, like Rochelle said, it's a useful and a valuable tool and measure as a baseline for evaluating candidates. But you want to be careful that you don't have it as the only measure or qualification. And whether or not you have it as a requirement, again, you'll have to assess your own hiring pool, candidate pool, and your own local needs for your organization. But we want to highlight what are some additional things that you should also be taking a look at when considering hiring interpreters. Right. And so you want

Speaker 1: to be able to look at a way to screen their language skills. Good interpreters in healthcare or any field really have a love and a passion for learning. They have research skills and can demonstrate that healthcare is an area of interest because it's not always for everybody. Some people even go through certification and training and then find out that the healthcare environment isn't really something where they would even be successful. So screening for

Speaker 2: that is one option. So yeah, look for the hard skills, but also take a look at what are the other skills that an interpreter specifically in a healthcare field would need in order to be successful. Things such as being comfortable in a healthcare environment. Right. I used the example of my aunt who at the sound of the word blood starts to get kind of nauseous and starts to want to pass out. Doesn't matter how strong her interpreting skills would be, healthcare is not going to be a good fit for her. Right. And so you want to have somebody who likes to learn. And you can go ahead, Erin. Somebody who is comfortable in a healthcare environment, somebody who likes the dynamic aspect of healthcare. And that doesn't just mean having a variety of healthcare scenarios and situations, but the people and personalities that are also involved in healthcare is another important component to be able to function within your role as the healthcare interpreter in that very dynamic environment. Right. And

Speaker 1: on the people skills, you want to have somebody who fits within your organizational culture, but that also fits well with your patient population and having somebody that can balance that line because there is complexities in being able to speak on behalf of the provider and convert that message, but then also being able to respect, understand, and communicate on behalf of the patient to make sure that there's good communication flow for efficiencies

Speaker 2: and consistencies. So we hope these have given you a few points to consider when thinking about setting your requirements for hire, maybe how to draft and what components to consider in a job description. So whether you're a hospital healthcare entity and hiring direct employees or contracting services out or language services provider, you want to think about these global skills and global qualities of individuals when you're thinking

Speaker 1: about hiring. Right. So certification is one step, but you want to take a look at the whole. So if you like this video, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, share across your social media platforms. Please send us feedback. We'd like to know what you think about what it takes to be an interpreter above and beyond the certification. Thanks for watching everybody.