High salaries entice qualified linguists
Fancy a salary of between $130,000 and $210,000? Well your luck could be in if you fill certain criteria.
Firstly, you have to be fluent and preferably also qualified (to attain the top salary band) in Arabic, Farsi or Pashto; secondly, you have to be a US Citizen and pass a security vetting process and finally, you will have to be prepared to serve in Iraq alongside US Forces. That being said, the chance for most linguists to earn over $1 million in less than five years is too good an opportunity to miss.
And this is exactly what several private hire firms are hoping; due to the chronic shortage of translators to serve alongside US Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, a wealth of these private hire linguist companies have sprung up in response. Some of these, such as Global Linguist Solutions (GLS) have grown into huge entities and employ as many as 8,000 translators and were established by former high ranking military personnel (GLS, for instance was established by retired US Major General James Marks).
Currently, GLS alongside many other of these linguist companies are on a recruitment drive and are visiting Arab-American ethnic conclaves across the US; GLS for example recently visited ‘Little Arabia’ in Anaheim, Orange County, California to promote its activities across all strata of the community.
With salaries running so high, maybe I’ll invest in a ‘Rosetta Stone Arabic Course’, get naturalised and get set to retire on a ‘Mil’ in five years!