How does your accent affect your chances in recruitment?
Yes, that’s right, your accent could be affecting how employable you are during the recruitment process. For better or worse, despite our best efforts, the UK has different attitudes to its regional accents. What are these attitudes, and what impact do they have on employment? Industrial factory cleaning company, DCS Multiserve investigate.
Did your accent influence an employer’s decision to hire you?
Research suggests that employers often allow an applicant’s accent to influence their decision to hire them. In fact, eight in 10 employers admit to making discriminating decisions based on regional accents, according to a report by law firm Peninsula.
For example, a teacher from Cumbria was advised to "sound less Cumbrian" by employers, according to a Guardian report. The same report also noted that a school in the West Midlands recently banned pupils from speaking regional slang to improve their chances of getting a job.
Is your accent employable?
Professor Lance Workman of the University of South Wales discovered that there are a number of accents that employers seem to favour. As reported by Recruiting Times, Workman discovered that people who speak the Queen’s English, or RP, are more likely to be recruited – despite being spoken by only 3% of the population. This was linked strongly to perceived levels of intelligence associated with a Queen’s English/RP accent, ahead of other regional accents – the Yorkshire accent was also discovered to be associated with intelligence.
Alternatively, the Birmingham accent was discovered to sound less intelligent – according to the research. 16% of Brummies have attempted to reduce their natural accent in job interviews.
What does your accent say about you?
Despite our best efforts, it is hard to avoid ‘accent discrimination’. Whether they are positive or negative, different assumptions are made based on accents in Great Britain. In 2013, ComRes and ITV interviewed 2,006 adults in early August, 2,014 adults in mid August and 2,025 adults in September to determine the attitudes to different regional accents. They discovered that…
- 28% of Brits feel discriminated against because of the way they speak. 14% feel accent discrimination in the workplace and 12% in job interviews.
- Discrimination in different situations varies, with 20% also feeling discrimination in social situations and 13% when being served in shops or restaurants too.
Respondents voted the Devon accent as the most ‘friendly’ regional accent
The top five ‘friendly’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- Devon (65% of votes as ‘friendly’)
- Newcastle (56% of votes as ‘friendly’)
- Edinburgh (51% of votes as ‘friendly’)
- Cardiff (51% of votes as ‘friendly’)
- Cockney (49% of votes as ‘friendly’)
Respondents voted the Liverpool accent as the most ‘unfriendly’ regional accent
The top five ‘unfriendly’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- Liverpool (26% of votes as ‘unfriendly’)
- Belfast (24% of votes as ‘unfriendly’)
- RP/Queen’s English (23% of votes as ‘unfriendly’)
- Manchester (21% of votes as ‘unfriendly’)
- Birmingham (21% of votes as ‘unfriendly’)
Respondents voted RP/Queen’s English as the most ‘intelligent’ accent
The top five ‘intelligent’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- RP/Queen’s English (62% of votes as ‘intelligent’)
- Edinburgh (38% of votes as ‘intelligent’)
- Devon (28% of votes as ‘intelligent’)
- Belfast (23% of votes as ‘intelligent’)
- Cardiff (23% of votes as ‘intelligent’)
Respondents voted Liverpool accent as the most ‘unintelligent’ accent
The top five ‘unintelligent’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- Liverpool (37% of votes as ‘unintelligent’)
- Birmingham (33% of votes as ‘unintelligent’)
- Cockney (32% of votes as ‘unintelligent’)
- Newcastle (26% of votes as ‘unintelligent’)
- Manchester (22% of votes as ‘unintelligent’)
Respondents voted RP/Queen’s English as the most ‘trustworthy’ accent
The top five ‘trustworthy’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- RP/Queen’s English (51% of votes as ‘trustworthy’)
- Devon (51% of votes as ‘trustworthy’)
- Edinburgh (44% of votes as ‘trustworthy’)
- Cardiff (37% of votes as ‘trustworthy’)
- Newcastle (36% of votes as ‘trustworthy’)
Respondents voteed Liverpool accent as the most ‘untrustworthy’ accent
The top five ‘untrustworthy’ accents, as voted by survey respondents, were:
- Liverpool (29% of votes as ‘untrustworthy’)
- Cockney (24% of votes as ‘untrustworthy’)
- Belfast (20% of votes as ‘untrustworthy’)
- Birmingham (17% of votes as ‘untrustworthy’)
- Manchester (17% of votes as ‘untrustworthy’)
The survey respondents were also aware of accent discrimination. In fact, 6% admitted to discriminating against someone’s accent in the workplace and 4% in a job interview.
How to tackle accent discrimination
As an applicant, it can be difficult to stand out to an employer for the right reasons – and the last thing you want is your regional accent becoming a hindrance during the recruitment process. There are a number of different (and somewhat conflicting) approaches that can be taken to accent discrimination. Some of the approaches recommended include:
- Stay clear of using regional slang, but don’t hide your accent – advice from Francesca Turner, a National Careers Service adviser.
- Don’t change your accent or the way you speak – advice from Brian Staines, Senior Career Adviser at the University of Bristol.
- Embrace your accent – back in 2014, Liverpudlian jobs minister Esther McVey advised people from the North West not to feel pressured to change their accent. McVey argued that people make a variety of judgements when looking for employees and that ‘we just need people who reflect other people’ and that her accent hadn’t held her back in her career. McVey also added: “I think it can be a colourful accent."
As an employer, it is important that you make a fair decision on which applicant you hire based on the right characteristics. For employers reading this article who want to avoid making choices based on accents, there are a number of preventative measures you can take – according to HR Daily Advisor and HMR. Some of these include:
- Make sure those with accents are not singled out in any way.
- Make sure all parts of the interviewing process do not discriminate.
- Try to avoid placing individuals with certain accents in certain roles.
- Avoid questioning the suitability of certain accents for roles over others.