Spanish proficiency testing for hiring

Find out how well a candidate speaks and writes Spanish before anyone interviews them. A link out, a CEFR level back in minutes. Nobody on your team has to speak it.

Conversation StartersQuestion 1 of 2

Recording
15s to think, then 40s to answerSample question
Speaking
7 min
Writing
15 min
Result
CEFR A1 to C2
From
$0.60 a test

Who tests for Spanish

Roles that commonly ask for it

  • bilingual customer service agents
  • patient access staff
  • bank tellers
  • case workers

Spanish is the commonest second language in US hiring. Bilingual customer service, healthcare front desks, banking, insurance and public services all ask for it, and many of those roles pay a bilingual differential that depends on the skill actually being there.

It is also the working language of the nearshore contact centres across Latin America that serve Spanish-speaking customers in the US and Spain, where agents are hired at volume and a level has to mean the same thing at every site.

Heritage speakers, who grew up speaking Spanish at home, are often fluent in conversation and less confident writing it. That is a good reason to score speaking and writing separately rather than rolling them into one impression.

What the candidate does

The same structure, timings and rubric for everyone, in Spanish. The buttons and timers around the questions follow the candidate's own language, so nobody is scored on operating the page.

Speaking

about 7 minutes
Conversation StartersExtended ResponseReading Fluency

Two everyday questions, one longer topic, then a short passage read aloud, which isolates pronunciation from the content of an answer. Each question is read aloud in Spanish, and the pale stretch before each answer is think time.

Total timed: 5 minutes.

Writing

about 15 minutes
Casual WritingProfessional Writing

A short everyday message, then a longer structured piece scored for organisation as well as accuracy. Pasting is switched off for every candidate.

Total timed: 15 minutes.
Think time AnsweringDrawn to scale within each skill.

A level you can put in a job description

Ten scores, five per skill, and the reasoning behind the level, so a result you disagree with can be checked rather than trusted.

One scale across every language: a B2 in Spanish means what a B2 in English means.

How the scoring works
Sample result

Speaking & Writing · Spanish

Overall
CEFR level
B2

Speaking

Pronunciation62
Fluency58
Grammar66
Vocabulary61
Coherence64

Writing

Task response68
Organisation64
Vocabulary60
Grammar63
Conventions71
What went well

Held the thread of an argument across a long answer and recovered naturally after losing a word. Vocabulary was appropriate to a professional register throughout.

Opportunities

Hesitation before complex clauses slowed the pace. Article use was inconsistent in the written responses, though it never obscured the meaning.

Questions people ask

What level of Spanish should a role require?
B2 is the usual bar for a role where someone has to handle an unscripted conversation in Spanish, which covers most bilingual customer service agents, patient access staff, bank tellers and case workers. B1 is generally enough for internal or heavily scripted work, and C1 is worth asking for where the wording carries risk: escalations, client management, anything contractual.
Do I need to speak Spanish to use the results?
No. The result is a CEFR level for speaking and for writing, with a score on each of five dimensions and the reasoning behind the level, in a dashboard that is in English. That is the point of it: most teams hiring for Spanish have nobody on the hiring side who could judge it themselves.
Does the candidate have to read the instructions in Spanish?
The questions are in Spanish, because that is what is being tested. The interface around them, the buttons, timers and welcome screen, follows the candidate instead: it opens in their browser's language, in any of the languages we assess, and they can switch it before the clock starts. Somebody being assessed on Spanish should not also be assessed on reading the page.
How long does a Spanish test take, and what does it cost?
Speaking takes about 7 minutes and returns a level on its own. Add writing and the whole assessment is about 20 minutes. It costs from $0.60 a test on annual billing, the same in every language, and you can start free with ten assessments without a card.
Can we use our own Spanish questions?
Yes. You can write your own question library in Spanish, for example one per role, and choose for each assessment whether it draws from yours or from our standard Spanish library. Question types and timings stay fixed, so a level from your library means the same as one from ours.

Try it on ten Spanish speakers you already know

Ten free assessments, no card. Send them to people whose Spanish you can already vouch for. If the levels match, you have your answer.

No credit card required.