How do banks test for language proficiency?
Is there some sort of test they give you or is it just a simple conversation? Curious to know if I need to polish my French before I start FT next summer
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Depends on the actual situation or deal. I was tested with a native speaker as my interviewer. Large companies have all sorts of language capabilities and they may pull someone into the interview panel if their seniority matches.
Another way of checking your language skills is to see in which country and in which language you studied. If someone, say, studied in China in the local language, their skills are probably good enough. English speaking courses don't count, of course, if that is the language everyone uses.
they got someone on the team who is a native speaker of the language on my CV to interview me in that language
thanks for the insight. are you native in said language, and if not, what did u state in your resume? also, how was the interview?
Seems the edit function deletes the previous comment so I'll go again. I am not native and had proficient on my CV. For that interview, it went well and I got the job. For a previous interview I had fluent on my CV and was approached by a fund. I had to do a case study in the second language and then present in that language. That was a step too far and that interview went terribly. I changed my CV immediately from fluent to proficient to give me some leeway. I would say if you are going to have it on your CV, at the very least you should be able to have a conversation in that language with a native speaker about finance / business etc.
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