How to Get Rid of a Strong Dialect for a Job Interview
June 16th, 2010 |
Getting an interview is the first step toward getting a great job, but having a strong dialect or accent may hurt your chances of succeeding at that interview. While it shouldn’t matter as long as you can do your job properly, some bosses do judge based on things like regional dialect, and that’s true of people who come from overseas and those who live in the US but have heavy accents – such as people from some parts of the South. Being around people without an accent or dialect is one of the ways you can help to lose yours.
If you practice speaking the way others around you do, you’ll eventually start to lose the dialect you have. That can take time, though, and you might not have a lot of time available before your job interview. If you’re short on time, you might want to try some one-on-one instruction. Find a friend who speaks clearly without a dialect, and ask him to help you. Make sure that you pay close attention to how he says words and why they’re pronounced that way. There are classes that can help you, but a friend or other caring individual can provide basically the same thing.
Remember, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that you have a dialect. Many people find a bit of an accent quite charming. The goal is to reduce your dialect to a level where people can clearly understand you, so tasks like customer service or communicating a difficult or complex concept to others won’t be difficult. You can get to that point fairly quickly, but start practicing as soon as you know you have a job interview coming up. That way, you’ll have the highest chance of success.
