e-Corp English now hiring

MIDDLEBURY — Leaders of e-Corporate English on Monday announced plans to hire an initial batch of more than a dozen workers in anticipation of moving into the company’s new headquarters off Middlebury’s Exchange Street after March 1.
It was in December that e-Corp English founder and President Deborah Schwarz confirmed plans to move the Malta-based company to Middlebury. The English language training firm will set up shop in 6,700 square feet of rented space previously occupied by Vermont Electro-Mechanical Assembly Services, known as VEMAS, at 1197 Exchange St.
Schwarz has said she hopes to expand e-Corp’s Middlebury work force to more than 100 within the next three years. At this point, the company’s leadership team is working out of rented space in the Marble Works complex, where it is busy laying the foundation for the new Middlebury headquarters, she told the Middlebury selectboard at its meeting Monday night.
“It’s almost completed and it’s absolutely beautiful,” Schwarz said of 1197 Exchange St. location.
Once mobilized in its new quarters, e-Corp will continue its mission (since 2007) of providing English language training to international businesspeople.
“We help them to help their personnel to do their job in English,” Schwarz said.
She explained that English is the language used by global companies when making transactions.
“When you have a French company dealing with the Czech Republic, the language they will speak in common will be English,” Schwarz said. “Ironically, even when you have French companies speaking with Swiss companies, it’s often English. There is an increasing wave in the world to make English the language of large companies.”
Schwarz noted that several of the largest Japanese companies — including Toyota — recently announced that their corporate language will henceforth be English.
Client companies give e-Corp a list of employees, who are tested for their proficiency in English. e-Corp then builds a program for each worker to make them functional in English.
Instruction — delivered by bi-lingual trainers — can take place online through the Internet, via telephone, or in a virtual studio.
Staffing at the Exchange Street headquarters will include:
•  Corporate management, including a chief operating officer, a global human resource officer, a project manager, and a chief financial officer.
•  A technical team to help produce the company’s language products and content more quickly. That function had previously been performed in India, Schwarz said.
•  Telephone training personnel. These are English language teachers who work with clients over the telephone. Language trainers will be able to interact directly with clients all over the world via interactive studios that are being created in the Exchange Street headquarters.
“We think we will have hired 20 people within the next 21 days and 35 by the middle of the year,” Schwarz said.
A list of jobs for which e-Corp is currently hiring can be found in the ad section of this paper and online at http://e-corpenglish.com/jobs/.
Schwarz anticipates the positions will draw some well-qualified candidates, some of whom will have to be well-versed not only in English, but in such languages as Chinese and Japanese. The proximity of Middlebury College — a world-class language school — should provide a good pool of candidates, Schwarz acknowledged.
“I am not worried about that category,” Schwarz said. “We are getting spontaneous applications, a lot of them very qualified.”
She is also optimistic the company will draw some good managers and is hopeful that some good tech people will submit resumes.
“We have waited to build the IT infrastructure; we need more volume,” Schwarz said. “We need a very strong systems administrator here.”
Schwarz anticipates her company will collaborate with Middlebury College on a joint business venture in the future.
“I would be surprised if we didn’t, in due course,” Schwarz said.
Muncipal officials said they are pleased to see e-Corp English become part of the local business community.
“I have the highest of hopes for your new enterprise and am very pleased to have you in town,” selectboard Chairman John Tenny said.
“We are grateful for all the support we’ve been given,” Schwarz said. “This is a wonderful community and we are honored to be here.”
Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].

Share this story:

No items found
Share this story: