Multilingual events for international recruitment
Jonathan Sabarre · , updated
International recruitment events are usually run in English, for audiences who are often deciding in another language. Live translation will not replace good recruiters, but it can change how the event feels for the people in it.
The language gap at the heart of the event
Think about who attends a typical international webinar or virtual open day. Prospective students whose English is good enough for study but who still find a fast-paced presentation tiring. Parents who are funding the decision and may have little English. Education agents who need to brief their own teams afterwards, in their own language. Each of them takes away less than they could, and some quietly leave.
Universities have tried to close this gap with recorded translations, separate sessions in key languages and bilingual staff. All of these help, and all of them are expensive to run at scale. Live AI translation offers another option: one event, followed by each attendee in the language they choose.
Where it is likely to help most
- Webinars: programme overviews, application guidance and question and answer sessions, where clarity matters more than polish.
- Open days: virtual or hybrid tours and talks, especially for families joining together from overseas.
- Agent briefings: updates to education agents and partners, who can take accurate information back to their students.
Captions and translated audio
There are two ways to follow a translated event, and attendees should be able to choose. Translated captions let people read along while still hearing the speaker's own voice, which many prefer. Translated audio lets people listen in their own language, which is easier for longer sessions and for those who find reading on screen hard. Offering both, and letting attendees switch at any point, respects different preferences.
Get the names right with a glossary
The quickest way to lose trust in a translated event is to mistranslate the things that matter most: programme names, school names, scholarship titles and the names of people on the panel. A general-purpose translation model cannot know that a programme title should stay in English, or that a scholarship has an official name in each language.
A short glossary prepared before each event fixes most of this. List the terms that must not be translated, the official translations to use and the pronunciation of key names. It takes about an hour and saves a great deal of confusion.
Latency is a trade-off, not a flaw
Live translation involves a short delay. The system needs to hear enough of a sentence to understand it before it can translate it well. Shorter delays feel more natural but risk translating half-formed thoughts. Longer delays tend to produce better translations but can make questions and answers feel disjointed.
There is no single right setting. For a structured presentation, a slightly longer delay usually works better. For live questions, speed matters more. Tell attendees that translation runs a few seconds behind, and build short pauses into the format, for example by having the host read each question aloud before the panel answers.
Respect the original speaker
Translation should carry the speaker's meaning, not rewrite it. That means no silent summarising, no smoothing over of difficult answers and no added claims. Attendees should be able to hear the original audio if they want to, and should be told clearly that translation is machine-generated and may contain errors. Speakers should know in advance that their words will be translated, so they can keep a steady pace and avoid idioms that do not travel well.
Anything with legal or financial weight (fees, visa requirements, deadlines) should also be published in writing, in the relevant languages, and checked by a person. Live translation is for understanding in the moment. It is not the record.
Accessibility is part of the same design
Captions built for translation also help attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, people joining from a noisy room and anyone who prefers to read. Designing multilingual and accessible events together tends to produce better results for both. Make sure captions can be resized, that the player works with a keyboard and screen reader, and that colour contrast meets WCAG 2.2 AA.
A recap in each attendee's language
The event does not end when the stream does. A short written recap, sent afterwards in the language each attendee chose, helps people remember what they heard and share it with family. Include the key points, links to the programmes discussed and clear next steps, with facts drawn from the university's published information rather than from the live translation. For agents, a recap they can forward to their own students can be the most useful thing the university sends them.
Start small and measure comprehension
Begin with one event and one or two languages where you already have strong interest. Prepare the glossary, brief the speakers, offer both captions and audio, and ask attendees afterwards whether they understood the key points and what they would change. Comprehension and participation from parents and agents are better measures of success than the number of languages offered.
Altiora Meet, our multilingual event module, is In development for pilots. We will publish the languages and audience sizes we have tested once that testing is complete.
Sources and further reading
- W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2: w3.org/TR/WCAG22