Job-Seekers Lose Accents to Get Jobs

Getting a job requires more than having the right skills and looking the part. Now, job seekers are trying to sound like someone who is right for the job.

According to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, 11 percent of workers are unemployed. Because of the high rate of unemployment, competition for open positions is fierce. That's especially true for workers who speak English as their second language.

Michelle Eppley teaches classes is what she calls "accent modification" at an Oak Brook school called The Sound Center. Eppley said she has seen a 15 percent spike in business compared to last January.

"I've worked with clients whose companies have been through multiple reorganizations," Eppley said. "They are nervous. They want to make themselves as valuable as they can to their companies."

Eppley said she only sees clients who can afford the classes, which run $100 an hour.

Chicago Business Consultant <a href="http://jasonseiden.com">Jason Seiden</a>, who is the author of two books on how to succeed in the workplace, said the growth of these classes comes as no surprise.

"When times are tough, organizations, companies, get risk averse," Seiden said. "They want to go with the tried and true. They want to go with what's familiar, and in this country, there's a particular language that's familiar."

Dr. Natalia Doran, founder of a Schaumburg beauty school, said she is already seeing benefits from the accent reduction classes she attended over the last two months.

"I did understand that to be successful in the United States, I had to improve my English," she said.

Doran has many students who were born outside the United States, and herself moved to the United States from Russia eight years ago. She said she is sharing her lessons from accent reduction school to in her classroom at Schaumburg's International Skin Beauty Academy.

"When people listen to you and you speak on the phone and they hear accent and they think, what is she going to teach us and how much does she know and that's why you need to prove yourself all the time," she said.

Which is even more important when you're trying to stand out in a state with a tight job market and a smorgasbord of accents. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau survey of Chicago and it's suburbs, nearly 20 percent of the region's 9.5 million residents were born outside the United States.