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One of the requirement listed to apply via the author's company is native fluency in English. How do they evaluate that? If it's some test, I am not aware of an

One of the requirement listed to apply via the author's company is native fluency in English. How do they evaluate that? If it's some test, I am not aware of any test which measures this. If it depends on where you are born? Is that kind of stratification legal?

doughj3 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_English_as_a_Foreign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_English_as_a_Foreign_L... I have seen this used in Grad school applications by ESL students.
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  There's also the ECPE https://michiganassessment.org/test-takers/tests/ecpe/ https://michiganassessment.org/test-takers/tests/ecpe/ But neither test "native"-ness. Just fluency.
stingraycharles 8y ago
Of course it’s legal and there are numerous language proficiency tests. I don’t see what the problem with that could possibly be, just like requiring a candidate to have a certain amount of proficiency in Python.
- foldr 8y ago
  Requiring "native fluency" could be interpreted as requiring the candidate to be a native English speaker, which would obviously be discriminatory. That's probably not the intent, but it's a bad choice of wording. If they mean "as fluent in English as a native speaker", then that's arguably much too high a standard.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    One wonders about the "fluency" of whoever wrote that requirement...
    - rsweeney21 8y ago
      English was always my worst subject. :)
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        Ha! If you decide to change it, I would just drop the "native". (IANAL)
cldellow 8y ago
There are plenty of tests that achieve this. My university got a lot of international candidates whose first language wasn't English and who hadn't been educated in English up until that point. As a result, they established a process to assess your fluency so they could accommodate you with additional training on English to ensure you'd be successful. https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-language-requirements https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-lang... lists 6 standardized tests that prospective students could use to demonstrate proficiency.
- foldr 8y ago
  The issue is the term "native", not requiring fluency in a given language. None of those tests will certify you as having "native" fluency in English.
  - cldellow 8y ago
    Yes, I should have been more detailed in my response. You're right that all of them give a quantative score, not a qualitative score like "native". There are qualitative scales where one of the labels is "native fluency". For example, the Interagency Language Roundtable has level 5 (native/bilingual fluency) which means the speaker has "complete fluency in the language, such that speech on all levels is fully accepted by educated native speakers in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary and idiom, colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references". Other people have devised concordances that map the quantitative scores from things like TOEFL onto the ILR labels. ILR level 5 is a very high bar, though, as you point out elsewhere. It is unlikely that Facet truly needs someone at that level, they'd most likely be fine with level 4 or level 3 speakers. But reaaaaaaaallllly, I suspect we're all ironically missing the point of the communication. On the one hand, we can construe it narrowly and it may be technically flawed. On the other hand, it's marketing copy and I suspect most readers treat it informally, especially since their audience is entrepreneurial people who want to do contract work -- a pool who is likely to ignore the strict letter of the requirement and apply anyway.
    - foldr 8y ago

doughj3 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_English_as_a_Foreign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_English_as_a_Foreign_L... I have seen this used in Grad school applications by ESL students.

hiccuphippo 8y ago
There's also the ECPE https://michiganassessment.org/test-takers/tests/ecpe/ https://michiganassessment.org/test-takers/tests/ecpe/ But neither test "native"-ness. Just fluency.

stingraycharles 8y ago

Of course it’s legal and there are numerous language proficiency tests. I don’t see what the problem with that could possibly be, just like requiring a candidate to have a certain amount of proficiency in Python.

foldr 8y ago
Requiring "native fluency" could be interpreted as requiring the candidate to be a native English speaker, which would obviously be discriminatory. That's probably not the intent, but it's a bad choice of wording. If they mean "as fluent in English as a native speaker", then that's arguably much too high a standard.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  One wonders about the "fluency" of whoever wrote that requirement...
  - rsweeney21 8y ago
    English was always my worst subject. :)
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Ha! If you decide to change it, I would just drop the "native". (IANAL)

cldellow 8y ago

There are plenty of tests that achieve this. My university got a lot of international candidates whose first language wasn't English and who hadn't been educated in English up until that point. As a result, they established a process to assess your fluency so they could accommodate you with additional training on English to ensure you'd be successful. https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-language-requirements https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-lang... lists 6 standardized tests that prospective students could use to demonstrate proficiency.

foldr 8y ago
The issue is the term "native", not requiring fluency in a given language. None of those tests will certify you as having "native" fluency in English.
- cldellow 8y ago
  Yes, I should have been more detailed in my response. You're right that all of them give a quantative score, not a qualitative score like "native". There are qualitative scales where one of the labels is "native fluency". For example, the Interagency Language Roundtable has level 5 (native/bilingual fluency) which means the speaker has "complete fluency in the language, such that speech on all levels is fully accepted by educated native speakers in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary and idiom, colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references". Other people have devised concordances that map the quantitative scores from things like TOEFL onto the ILR labels. ILR level 5 is a very high bar, though, as you point out elsewhere. It is unlikely that Facet truly needs someone at that level, they'd most likely be fine with level 4 or level 3 speakers. But reaaaaaaaallllly, I suspect we're all ironically missing the point of the communication. On the one hand, we can construe it narrowly and it may be technically flawed. On the other hand, it's marketing copy and I suspect most readers treat it informally, especially since their audience is entrepreneurial people who want to do contract work -- a pool who is likely to ignore the strict letter of the requirement and apply anyway.
  - foldr 8y ago