Language Opportunities

Foreign Language Proficiency Scale

When you bring your language skills to the CIA, you are supporting a mission of national importance. As threats to our country’s safety continue to evolve, it’s important that our employees have the language abilities and cultural expertise necessary to handle both emerging and current national security challenges.

The CIA places such a high value on foreign language skills that we offer monetary incentives to new and current employees who meet and maintain proficiency requirements. In order to accurately assess foreign language proficiency in job candidates, we use the Interagency Language Roundtables scale or ILR for short.