The enterprise guide to multilingual hiring in India

Here is a short summary of what multilingual hiring means for large Indian employers in 2026:

India is not a country with one language and a few dialects. The Census of India records 122 major languages and 1,599 other languages. 30 languages each have more than a million native speakers. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages. Each one has millions of speakers, and many have their own script, grammar, literature and regional identity.

Any serious plan to hire across India starts with knowing where these languages are spoken. The four major South Indian languages are Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. They belong to the Dravidian family, which is unrelated to Hindi in grammar and vocabulary. Picture a recruiter from Delhi interviewing a candidate from Chennai in Hindi. That is not a second language for the candidate. It is a completely different language system. The extra mental effort it takes says nothing about how well they will do the job. It only shows how good their Hindi is.

India scores 0.914 on Greenberg's diversity index. That means two people picked at random will have different native languages 91.4% of the time. No other major economy has a hiring challenge this complex across so many people.

Indian companies place English on a pedestal in hiring. This goes back to colonial rule. The British made English the language of government in the 19th century. That linked speaking English with being good at your job, and the link still shapes hiring today, mostly at the screening stage. Many job interviews and company messages are in English. That shuts out candidates who are otherwise qualified. Talented people often miss out on jobs or promotions only because they do not meet an arbitrary bar for English fluency.

This hurts most in the roles companies need to fill fastest. Think of a high-performing BDA at an NBFC in Patna, Nagpur or Coimbatore. They call prospects, explain loan products, build trust with first-time borrowers and close applications. Every conversation is in the local language, such as Hindi, Marathi or Tamil. Their income depends on how well they explain value, handle objections and build rapport in that language. A written test or HR screening call in English measures none of the skills this job needs.

30% of future BFSI hires are expected to come from underrepresented groups in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Many of these candidates do not speak English well. Some companies have committed to growing BFSI in these areas but still screen mainly in English. That is a contradiction at the center of their hiring plan.

The same is true in other sectors. A reporter at a Tamil-language TV channel should be tested on spoken Tamil. A factory supervisor at a cement plant in Rajasthan works entirely in Hindi. A customer service agent at a Kannada-language banking unit in Karnataka works only in Kannada. English does not matter for any of these roles. Yet in most hiring processes for them, it still works as a filter.

India is now one of the top three BFSI markets in the world, valued at ₹91 trillion. Fintech, digital public infrastructure and wider access to finance in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities have sped up that growth. Demand for BFSI jobs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities has risen 30%. The growth is strongest in insurance, housing finance, NBFCs and retail banking. In Tier III cities, BFSI job demand jumped 37% between FY23 and FY24.

The frontline roles behind this growth include insurance advisors, loan officers, field sales staff, BDAs and branch relationship managers. They deal with customers who speak Bhojpuri, Odia, Marwari or Chhattisgarhi. The best person for these roles is not the one with the most fluent English in the interview. It is the one who can explain a fixed deposit scheme in a language the customer trusts. They can turn down a loan with respect. And they can earn repeat business in places where word of mouth is the main way to win customers.

Companies like Bajaj Capital and Tata Capital work across India's Tier-2 and Tier-3 BFSI markets. A hiring process that treats English as proof of skill does not serve them well. They need a process that checks whether a candidate can hold a convincing, trust-building money conversation in the local language of the market.

India's regional media industry is one of the biggest in the world, and it earns a lot. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi and Bengali TV and print markets each have their own audience of tens of millions. Journalists, anchors, reporters and content producers in these markets are judged on their command of the regional language. That means their range of words, how well they speak off the cuff on camera, how fluent they stay under time pressure and how well they understand their audience's culture.

Broadcasters like Zee Media, Sun Network and Eenadu run channels in several regional languages. Screening a Tamil news anchor in English tells you nothing useful. The interview that predicts whether this person can anchor a primetime bulletin must happen in Tamil. It must test spoken Tamil reasoning and fluency at a high level. HR teams that work in English are not set up to judge that.

India's manufacturing growth will not come only from big cities. Much of it is happening in cities like Coimbatore, Nashik and Rajkot, and dozens of others. Factories in sectors like cement, ceramics, textiles and auto parts hire many supervisors, quality control staff, machine operators and line managers. These roles need fluent spoken communication in the local language of the plant.

A cement plant in Rajasthan hires supervisors who give instructions in Hindi. Their workers speak Rajasthani and Mewari dialects. A ceramics maker in Morbi, Gujarat hires quality inspectors who write reports in Gujarati and talk to local transport vendors in Gujarati. A textile mill in Coimbatore hires shift supervisors who manage Tamil-speaking workers. In none of these cases does English predict how well someone will do the job. But English-language screening still filters candidates out before they can show the skills that matter.

The cost of this filtering shows up later, when people leave. Say a supervisor is hired for their English interview but sent to manage a Hindi-speaking factory floor. They face a communication gap from day one. The gap between what was tested and what the job needs is built into the hire.

India's BPO sector serves two kinds of clients. International clients need fluent English. Domestic clients need regional languages. Domestic BPO handles customer service, collections, insurance claims and money questions for Indian companies, and most of that work happens in regional languages. Call centers in Chennai serve Tamil Nadu insurance customers in Tamil. Teams in Hyderabad answer banking questions in Telugu. Collections desks in Pune speak Marathi with local borrowers.

Staffing companies that supply these BPO teams need to screen for the right language. General speaking skill is not enough. Candidates must show they can do the work in the exact language the role needs. CV reviews and English tests cannot check this. You have to hear the candidate speak their working language, judge how well they speak and score it against what the role needs.

One healthcare hiring project covered 220 clinics in India. It found that customer-facing roles, especially in some cities, needed people with strong service skills and regional language fluency to give personal care. The same is true in healthcare, retail banking, insurance advice and any sector where customer trust decides the outcome. In India, trust is mostly built in the language the customer grew up speaking.

Most large HR teams have tried one of three ways to handle hiring in many languages. Each one fails in its own way.

Regional recruiters in the middle. Many companies hire local recruitment partners or staffing agencies in each state. In effect, they hand the language problem to someone else. This only partly solves it. The regional recruiter can talk to candidates in the local language. But they use their own judgment, not a shared scoring rubric. So each state judges candidates differently. There is no transcript or recording. And you cannot compare a candidate in Tamil Nadu with one in Odisha on the same standard.

Panel interviews in regional languages. For senior roles, some companies fly in or video-call an employee who speaks the regional language to run part of the interview. This is costly and slow, and it depends on that one person being free. It creates scheduling delays that stretch time-to-hire. It also limits how many candidates you can assess.

Written tests in English with regional language options. Some companies offer regional language versions of written multiple-choice tests. That helps candidates understand the questions, but it does not test the right thing. A written test in Tamil tells you whether a candidate can read Tamil. It does not tell you if they can speak Tamil fluently under pressure. It does not show if they can calm an upset customer in Tamil. Or if they can explain a complex product in Tamil to someone who knows little about money. A written format cannot show the skills the role needs.

None of these methods gives you what good hiring needs. You need a standard test of how candidates speak in their working language. Everyone should be scored on the same rubric. It must work for the number of candidates large employers handle. And it must give you transcripts and recordings you can review, check and compare.

A multilingual hiring process that produces better shortlists has three features.

The test happens in the candidate's working language. The scoring rubric is built around the skills the role needs. These might be clear communication, persuasion, handling objections, explaining technical topics or something else. The candidate shows those skills in the language they will use at work. English is only required when the job itself needs English.

Scoring is structured and the same in every language. Everyone is scored on the same rubric, whether they interview in Hindi or Malayalam. The result is a score for each skill, with quotes from the transcript. A hiring manager in Mumbai can compare a candidate who interviewed in Telugu with one who interviewed in Marathi. They do not need to speak either language.

It works for large numbers of candidates. Many roles get 50 to 200 applicants. The process cannot depend on people holding one-on-one conversations in regional languages at every stage. The first round must be automated, scored and ranked. Then people only review the top candidates, not every application.

Goodfit runs AI voice interviews in 14 languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Odia. The candidate gets a link and does the interview in their chosen language, when it suits them. The AI scores their answers against the skills rubric the hiring team set. It scores them in the same language the candidate spoke.

You get a scored report for each candidate. It has the full transcript, a score for each skill with the exact quotes behind it and a proctoring summary. The hiring manager does not need to speak Tamil to review a Tamil interview. The AI has already handled the language. The manager reads a scored report with quotes and the recording.

An NBFC hiring a group of BDAs across UP and Bihar: The HR team creates one Goodfit assessment for the BDA role. They set the rubric around explaining financial products and handling objections. They invite all 300 applicants. Candidates in Lucknow interview in Hindi. Candidates from Bhojpuri-speaking districts can also interview in Hindi. The team gets scored reports for all 300 candidates, ranked on the same rubric.

A regional broadcaster hiring Tamil anchors: The assessment covers spoken fluency, the right tone for the moment and explaining a breaking news story under time pressure. Candidates interview in Tamil. The AI scores their range of words, how clearly they explain and how calm they stay. The broadcast director reads the top 15 transcripts and listens to the top 10 recordings. They are all in Tamil, with scores already attached.

A manufacturer hiring supervisors at three plants in different states: Plant A in Rajasthan hires Hindi speakers. Plant B in Karnataka hires Kannada speakers. Plant C in Andhra Pradesh hires Telugu speakers. All three assessments run on Goodfit, each with a rubric for its language. The central HR team sees one dashboard. It compares candidates from all three plants on the same set of skills.

A BPO staffing agency screening for domestic client accounts: The agency screens 500 candidates for Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam accounts. Each candidate gets the assessment for the language of the account they applied for. The agency sends clients scored shortlists much faster than before. Clients can review the recordings and transcripts themselves.

You pay per candidate. There are no per-seat licenses and no regional recruiter fees for the screening stage.

Many people see multilingual hiring as a diversity or inclusion effort. They think of it as a nice gesture that shows cultural respect. That misses the point. Multilingual hiring is about measuring the right thing. The real question is simple: are you testing the skill the job needs?

Say a company screens a Telugu-speaking insurance sales candidate in English. It is not measuring whether that person will sell well in Andhra Pradesh. It is measuring whether they went to an English-medium school. In some groups, those two things go together. In the groups that supply most of India's frontline workers, they do not. A company that uses English as a filter is not being careful. It is measuring the wrong thing, again and again.

A typical Indian professional might speak Tamil at home, Hindi with a colleague from another state and write emails in English. This mix is a strength of the Indian workforce. It is not a problem to iron out. A hiring platform that meets candidates where they are will produce better shortlists. It tests them in the language they are strongest in and that the job needs. A platform that forces one language on everyone is really screening for something else.

Over the next ten years, some companies will build the best workforces across India's Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. They will be the ones that learn to assess local talent accurately. They will not be the ones that wait for local talent to pass their English test.