Testing reveals most Czech job seekers have a lower level of English skills than they claim on their CVs. Photo: @BrnoDaily, at JobSpin.cz Multilingual Job Fair
Brno, Dec. 1 (BD) – Around 30,000 job applicants from three countries – Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary – who stated in their CVs that they had a knowledge of English participated in the testing carried out by TrackTes and Profesia.sk job board between 2015 and 2017.
One-third of Czech job applicants claimed to have English skills at a B2 level. The B2 level is the most-often required level of English in the country’s job market.
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEF or CEFR) recognizes six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. British Council defines B2 as: “Level B2 corresponds to independent users of the language, i.e. those who have the necessary fluency to communicate without effort with native speakers.”
It turned out that more than a half of the tested Czech job applicants did not meet this requirement and in fact, has B1 level or lower English skills.
Slovak jobseekers scored the best and achieved a TrackTest score of 491 points out the maximum of 1,200 points; the Czechs followed with 479 points; the third place went to the Hungarians with 474 points.
Slovakia had the highest proportion of people who have reached B2 or higher.
Up to 74% of Czech job seekers claim some English knowledge on their CVs. This is followed by German, Russian or French.
Eurostat statistics showed that in 2015, the Czech Republic had 99.9% of secondary education pupils learning English, 16% learning French, and 59.4% learning German.
