Multilingual candidate surveys

Ask candidates in a language they can answer in

A global hiring funnel reaches people who have no company account, no HRIS record and no working language set against their name. This is how candidate surveys run in over a hundred languages and still come back as one score, inside the wider candidate experience platform.

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One survey, over a hundred languages, one score

Why it matters here

A candidate is not an employee yet

By the time someone joins, they have an account, an HRIS record and a language set against their name. A candidate has none of that. They are reachable for a few weeks, on a personal address or phone, often in a country where your working language is their second or third. An English-only survey does not fail loudly at that point. It just comes back thinner, from the people most comfortable answering in English.

  • Answered in their own language61%
  • Answered in English24%
  • Did not answer15%

Sample figures. The share worth watching is the third one: an English-only survey pushes people into it, and the candidates it loses are rarely a random sample of your funnel.

How it runs

Write the question once

The translation layer is the same one already running on your employee surveys, which is what keeps a candidate score and an employee score comparable rather than being two separate programs that happen to share a logo.

  1. Survey languages
    EnglishDefault
    EspañolOn
    日本語On
    +96 availableAdd

    Set your languages

    Configure the languages your account listens in. Over a hundred are available.
  2. Interview stage
    How likely are you to recommend applying here?
    0 to 10Required

    Write in one

    Author each stage question once, in your working language, exactly as you would for an English-only program.
  3. Generating
    EspañolDone
    日本語62%
    العربيةQueued

    Translations generate themselves

    Adding a language generates its translations, and updating the English re-generates them, so a program is not blocked waiting on a translation vendor.
  4. Español · edit
    Hiring manager
    Responsable de contratación

    Correct what matters

    Every language is editable by hand under Survey Settings, Translations. Role titles and internal terms are usually the ones worth a human pass.
  5. PreviewEspañol
    Tu opinión sobre el proceso
    Hola Ana, gracias por tu tiempo. ¿Nos cuentas cómo fue?

    Check the email too

    Local-language sending for launch and reminder emails is switched on per account, and any configured language can be previewed on the template before the first send.
What gets translated

The survey, the scale, and the answers coming back

Worth being precise about, because "multilingual" is used loosely and the parts have different scopes. The candidate experience survey itself is translated in full; the surrounding email is scoped to launch and reminder messages.

PartTranslatedNotes
Stage survey questionsYesEach question carries a translation per language, generated when the language is added and editable under Survey Settings, Translations.
The 0 to 10 scale and its labelsYesScale labels translate automatically and are editable per language. The candidate NPS question also carries its own customizable title per language.
Survey launch and reminder emailsWhen enabledLocal-language sending covers launch and reminder emails. Templates are not translated by default; it is switched on per account.
Open text answersOn readingWith translation enabled, free text exports carry a translated column, so a comment in Portuguese is readable without a separate step.
A language you corrected by handRe-generatedUpdating the English re-generates every translation, so a hand-corrected language is worth re-checking after a wording change.
Reading it

Language is a cut, not a separate report

The reason to run this on one platform rather than a survey tool per region is that the answers stay in one dataset.

  • One score across languages

    A translated question is the same question, so the candidate NPS and the driver scores are computed across the whole cohort rather than per language.
  • Compare regions honestly

    A low score in one country is a real difference in experience, not an artefact of who was comfortable answering in English.
  • Open text you can actually read

    Comments come back translated for reading, so the qualitative half of the survey is not quietly limited to the languages your team happens to speak.
  • Held to the same threshold

    The candidate reporting threshold applies to a language cut like any other, so a country with three candidates this quarter is not readable back to them. The full set of cuts is in the candidate experience metrics.
Reach

The language is half of it, the channel is the other half

A survey in someone’s own language still has to arrive somewhere they look. A candidate has no company inbox, so delivery runs to the personal address or number you hold for them, over the channels they already use, the same set the candidate experience survey program uses at every stage.

FAQ

Multilingual candidate surveys, answered

What are multilingual candidate surveys?

Multilingual candidate surveys are candidate experience surveys presented to each candidate in a language they can answer comfortably, rather than in a single company working language. In a global hiring funnel that matters more than it does for employees: a candidate has no company account and no HRIS record, and is often applying in a country where your working language is their second or third. CultureMonkey runs them on the same translation layer as its employee surveys, as part of a wider candidate experience platform.

How many languages are supported?

Over a hundred. The same set your employee surveys already use, because it is the same account configuration rather than a separate candidate list. You choose which of them your account listens in, and only those appear as options.

Are the translations machine generated or human?

Both, in that order. Translations are generated automatically when a language is added to the account, and updating the English re-generates them, so a program is never blocked waiting on a translation vendor. Every language can then be edited by hand under Survey Settings, Translations, and those edits stick. In practice the edits worth making are role titles, internal team names and anything with a legal meaning; general question wording usually survives machine translation intact.

Does running the survey in several languages split the results?

No. A translated question is treated as the same question, so scores are computed across the whole cohort and language becomes another way to cut the results rather than a separate report. That is the practical argument for one platform over a survey tool per region: comparing a Spanish-speaking cohort with an English-speaking one is a filter rather than a reconciliation exercise.

Can we read open text answers written in other languages?

Yes. Free text exports include a translated column when translation is enabled for the account, so a comment left in Portuguese or Japanese is readable without a separate step. This matters more than it sounds: the open text is where candidates explain a score, and a program that can only read comments in the languages its HR team happens to speak is quietly discarding the most useful half of the response.

Do multilingual surveys work over WhatsApp and SMS as well as email?

Yes. Candidates have no company inbox, so delivery runs over email, WhatsApp and SMS, and the language and the channel are separate choices. Reaching someone in their own language on a channel they do not check is the same miss as reaching them on the right channel in the wrong language. The candidate experience survey program uses the same delivery at every hiring stage.

Hear from every candidate, not just the ones who answer in English

Over a hundred languages, five channels, one score across all of them.

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