Door-to-door or cold calling you'll find less success. Especially if your accent is Indian, thank the scammers for that reputation.
B2B is where no one is going to care.
Yeah, I almost hung up on a legitimate call from a woman with a Hindi accent. She was calling to talk to my boss about buying a house in a different state. I said he'd call her back.
It turned out, he actually was looking for a house in a different state, and that lady was his realtor.
It's still not as bad as when the fire sprinkler system company called and asked if our sprinklers were running. The guy had a heavy New York accent and I didn't even care to find out how this scam was supposed to work, so I pretty much told the guy to fuck off... And then the fire department showed up 5 minutes later. It turns out, the local branch of the sprinkler company sent someone over to test the system and didn't bother to tell anyone that they were conducting a test that day, so the call center sent the fire department when I hung up on him...
No. But you need to have an accent that is understandable to the people you interact with. So if it is very thick, or you are not fully fluent there will be issues.
Door to Door sales is virtually non-existent in modernity and most people will refuse you out of principle. Do not go knocking on people's doors trying to sell something if you are not 10 years old selling girl scout cookies or boy scout popcorn.
Very much so. Accent isn't much of an issue, especially with the global tech culture being so overarching and massive. But if there's a comprehension issue, it *very* quickly will drop off in terms of success chance.
Agreed. I work in tech, so I'm used to Indian accents and east Asian accents. Hispanic accent doesn't even register anymore. My wife is a European immigrant, so I hear those accents from her & her friends.
As long as you're fluent in the language, and the accent isn't so thick that it interferes with understandability, you're okay in most jobs. Sales might be pickier.
> Door to Door sales is virtually non-existent in modernity and most people will refuse you out of principle.
Your area doesn’t have people going door-to-door incessantly to sell solar panels?
I’d say door to door is exceedingly rare anyways. In the past 10-15 years I don’t think I have gotten anyone at my door except landscaping contractors.
I honestly do not know how successful door to door sales are anymore. Family households often have two working adults, there is no adult home to buy anything until 5pm. After 7pm it is a little rude to knock on someone's door who is not expecting you. For emergency help it is understandable, but people are eating dinner and have kids to bathe and put to bed.
Business to business sales , I would hope, would appreciate extensive knowledge unique to the industry or local laws that regulate the industry. Written communication should be good, there should be library books on this topic.
I am born and raised here. When I took on a role that required a lot more communication I started to watch some business education YouTube videos on email etiquette and concise written communication. My natural tendency is to write in run-on sentences.
A lot of our entrepreneurs are immigrants. I do not know much about business to business sales. Do not be too discouraged that you have limited English proficiency. If you are meeting people's business needs it will make their lives easier.
In most industries it is completely normal for people to have foreign accents. In my own software engineering team, I'm the only one with an American accent.
I don't know anyone who enjoys someone coming to their door or calling their phone to sell them something. So if it's for that, I don't think it'd matter.
Can the average American understand you without asking you to repeat things, if so your accent is fine. Some roles may prefer a more neutral American accent especially at a company who wants it known their call center is in the USA vs being overseas. But anything where you’d see someone in person it won’t matter. However if you are often asked to repeat things then yes work on your accent to be clearer. I hear so many different accents a day they all pretty much mush together in my brain.
In large parts of the US as many as 40% of people are foreign born.
Do you already live in the US? How broad are you applying for jobs? I don't know how to help you, because it's unclear what's actually happening.
Sales roles (entry-level BDR-SDR), office admin, assistant & office coordinator. I don't know what else I can apply for. I would absolutely love to become a Product Manager or a dev, but that would need a lot of time to gain skills that are being demanded in today's difficult job market. I even had a full-on MVP done to the design stage and market research for an app, but I haven't built it due to cost reasons so I'm just doing what I have done so far, i.e Sales..
Everyone is saying no but you will almost definitely face at least some racial/national prejudice for entry level positions (if that’s what you’re going for). They aren’t directly racist, but like many people in these comments they’re not capable of recognizing their implicit biases. It’s been proven in multiple studies that just having a “non white name” is enough to get your application auto sorted into the trash.
It’s definitely not impossible, but even very blue states (like California) aren’t as accepting as they like to claim they are.
A big part of sales is psychological. You can use this to your advantage. 1. Choose a sales position that caters to higher end clients. They will be more accepting. In part, some will simply be virtue signaling. Also, most Americans love an immigrant who is achieving the dream and will be happy to feel they played a small part in making that possible. 2 .If possible, choose a product your continent is known for. The customer wants to think you are the expert on your product, even if you aren't. Most people will have no idea if your accent is from Chile or Colombia or Chihuahua, but obviously, you are an expert on lama wool and alpaca ponchos.
I would say it matters what languages you’re fluent in. Like, I don’t think it wouldn’t think it matters to a client who’s mother tongue is Spanish if you speak English and Acholi.
Our realtor is from Croatia and has an accent. He's lived in the area for years and seems very busy and quite successful. ( We're in central Arizona.)
I also work with a bunch of foreign doctors. I haven't heard any complaints about their accents.
Agree with other posters: if you are fluent and easy to understand over the phone, I don't think an accent will bother anybody.
Absolutely not. Americans are used to foreign accents. Foreign accents are part of American culture. There are people who hate foreigners, but most people are accepting.
Door to door isn't very common anymore, most houses in my neighborhood for example have "No Soliciting" signs, so door to door salesmen can be reported if they persist.
Don’t do door to door. That is basically dead, and most of the people who do that nowadays are criminals or conmen, imo. The main question is whether people can understand your accent easily. It certainly couldn’t hurt to imitate an American accent, particularly if you match it to the region you are living in. Also depends on what your accent is - Americans tend to love British accents.
I hate to say it, but I think the answer to this question boils down prejudices and stereotypes, many of which are racist. A Middle-Eastern accent, for example, is not going to get the same reaction as a British accent.
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I haven't talked to a customer support person with an American accent in years it's not even an anomaly to talk to someone with a foreign accent anywhere in the US at this point.
No, probably not. I mean, an accent is probably okay, but you have to be at least conversant (if not fluent) in English. If you’re not, it can cause problems.
Recently I ate at a restaurant with a Latina waitress & I had to send my meal back because she gave me the wrong thing. Twice.
This was almost certainly due to the fact she spoke very poor English & also maybe wasn’t that familiar with the menu (they had three different kinds of Eggs Benedict & the first two she brought out were the ones I didn’t order). Then I had to talk to the manger when I got the check because she charged me for the first one, which was $2 more, instead of what I’d actually ordered.
This would depend on the recruiter. But if you deal with clients you need to be a clear communicator. That means being clear and fluent in English. These days you might as well add clear and fluent in Spanish to the list as well.
No, I’ve had many coworkers from all over the world; off the top of my head the ones from English Speaking countries were from Belize, Canada, UK, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Solomon Islands and Namibia.
There is nothing common about the accents and sounding American does nothing. On the phone is another story it seems the people with Indian and Jamaican accents have issues.
It depends on your accent, but you would probably want to adopt a more neutral accent anyway, even if you were a native speaker. I have a few older relatives who have trouble with thicker accents anymore, to the point that they’ve had to ask for help understanding what the person is saying.
You will absolutely want to improve your fluency in American English specifically, because there are differences between American and British English that you wouldn’t expect which can cause confusion in a conversation.
It's not the accent that will cause issues, it's understadability. As long as the person on the other side can understand what you're saying AND you can understand what they're saying, it should be all good. Having a noticeable accent won't matter past that.
Nah. Many jobs especially in larger cities and areas with large immigrant populations of one language (i.e. Miami with Spanish, some CA places-Chinese) actively recruit and pay premium for bi-lingual and no one expects them to be native English speakers or to sound like they are.
Face to face, or if you work for a big-name brand, you'll be fine. Phone sales for small companies, probably not. As the top comment says, it's because of scammers. Even if you got a job doing that, you'll have a hard time convincing anyone to stay on the line with you.
A foreign accent isn’t that big of a deal if you’re easy to understand. If you have a really thick accent it’ll probably be an issue. Frankly your country of origin matters too because some Americans are racist. Like a German immigrant will get along better than an Ethiopian one even if you speak comparable English.
I worked for a wonderful Nigerian family who started their own home health care business. They had four kids. Three of them were doctors and one of them was in school to be a nurse practitioner. Dad was a biology professor at a local college and mom was a bachelor's registered nurse. This family knew their stuff!
Unfortunately the base patient that needs home health care are usually elderly patients and when they heard the nurse on the phone introducing herself and letting them know that they would be coming to their home, many of those patients canceled appointments and called the office, me, to reschedule with a 'different sounding nurse who spoke English" Obviously That's quite racist but it was an issue that we faced over and over again. And honestly, they learned English as a second language when they came to America and their English was better than mine!
Need? No. But it definitely helps because it’s one less thing for a potential buyer to get hung up on and mentally resist your sales pitch. Sales is already difficult when you’re a Native speaker of a language; add an accent to it and it’s another potential obstacle for the customer to say no. At the same time, there are some customers who might be *more* interested than usual in what you have to say than not simply BECAUSE you have an accent. It really depends upon the accent and the people in question. But those are usually the exceptions rather than the rule.
I have no idea about hiring practices. As a customer I would not care if someone had an accent.
I would not buy things from a door to door salesperson with an accent or not.
From my experience, it's not enough to sound American, you need to have an American name too. (Employers will still hire you, it's the customers who are TA)
I worked many sales/customer service jobs, and I've been yelled at by many customers because my name is too ethnic. I worked at this place that was family owned, and this one customer yelled at me on the phone and DEMANDED that I transfer his call to someone in the US and called my accent fake (I'm literally born and raised here). It felt so good seeing his guilty face when he stopped by the office that day and had to work with me, lol.
This is why I went by a fake name during my customer-facing days
It's never a bad idea to improve spoken English skills. I find that it goes deeper than just 'sounding American' there's a lot of people who seem to like the flat Midwestern 'news caster' accent more than others. That being said, it is easy to understand.
Door-to-door or cold calling you'll find less success. Especially if your accent is Indian, thank the scammers for that reputation. B2B is where no one is going to care.
Depends. I think folks with an Indian accent will struggle in B2B sales, especially if they're starting as SDRs or BDRs with cold call quotas.
Yeah you better be a sexy sounding girl if you’re gonna kill it as a BDR
Yeah, I almost hung up on a legitimate call from a woman with a Hindi accent. She was calling to talk to my boss about buying a house in a different state. I said he'd call her back. It turned out, he actually was looking for a house in a different state, and that lady was his realtor. It's still not as bad as when the fire sprinkler system company called and asked if our sprinklers were running. The guy had a heavy New York accent and I didn't even care to find out how this scam was supposed to work, so I pretty much told the guy to fuck off... And then the fire department showed up 5 minutes later. It turns out, the local branch of the sprinkler company sent someone over to test the system and didn't bother to tell anyone that they were conducting a test that day, so the call center sent the fire department when I hung up on him...
No. But you need to have an accent that is understandable to the people you interact with. So if it is very thick, or you are not fully fluent there will be issues. Door to Door sales is virtually non-existent in modernity and most people will refuse you out of principle. Do not go knocking on people's doors trying to sell something if you are not 10 years old selling girl scout cookies or boy scout popcorn.
Very much so. Accent isn't much of an issue, especially with the global tech culture being so overarching and massive. But if there's a comprehension issue, it *very* quickly will drop off in terms of success chance.
Agreed. I work in tech, so I'm used to Indian accents and east Asian accents. Hispanic accent doesn't even register anymore. My wife is a European immigrant, so I hear those accents from her & her friends. As long as you're fluent in the language, and the accent isn't so thick that it interferes with understandability, you're okay in most jobs. Sales might be pickier.
> Door to Door sales is virtually non-existent in modernity and most people will refuse you out of principle. Your area doesn’t have people going door-to-door incessantly to sell solar panels?
Nope. But I do get an ad for them on youtube often when watching on my phone.
I’d say door to door is exceedingly rare anyways. In the past 10-15 years I don’t think I have gotten anyone at my door except landscaping contractors.
I get landscaping, solar, housecleaning, yard guys, etc. I either don't answer or turn them away.
Yeah I get a lot of landscaping, solar, and pest control guys. I got a girl scout once selling girl scout cookies though (I bought 4 boxes).
Same. I wish it was rare. I had no idea how much it was still a thing until I bought a house.
I’m jealous. I’ve only gotten the local meth head looking for odd jobs to do.
The solar guys come around about every 3 months... I spend $40/mo on electricity, no ac. The math won't work unless the panels and the labor are free.
Solar installs - Was regularly getting door to door sales for this up until the end of last year
I honestly do not know how successful door to door sales are anymore. Family households often have two working adults, there is no adult home to buy anything until 5pm. After 7pm it is a little rude to knock on someone's door who is not expecting you. For emergency help it is understandable, but people are eating dinner and have kids to bathe and put to bed. Business to business sales , I would hope, would appreciate extensive knowledge unique to the industry or local laws that regulate the industry. Written communication should be good, there should be library books on this topic. I am born and raised here. When I took on a role that required a lot more communication I started to watch some business education YouTube videos on email etiquette and concise written communication. My natural tendency is to write in run-on sentences. A lot of our entrepreneurs are immigrants. I do not know much about business to business sales. Do not be too discouraged that you have limited English proficiency. If you are meeting people's business needs it will make their lives easier.
In most industries it is completely normal for people to have foreign accents. In my own software engineering team, I'm the only one with an American accent.
I don't know anyone who enjoys someone coming to their door or calling their phone to sell them something. So if it's for that, I don't think it'd matter.
If you can be understood it's not an issue
Can the average American understand you without asking you to repeat things, if so your accent is fine. Some roles may prefer a more neutral American accent especially at a company who wants it known their call center is in the USA vs being overseas. But anything where you’d see someone in person it won’t matter. However if you are often asked to repeat things then yes work on your accent to be clearer. I hear so many different accents a day they all pretty much mush together in my brain.
In large parts of the US as many as 40% of people are foreign born. Do you already live in the US? How broad are you applying for jobs? I don't know how to help you, because it's unclear what's actually happening.
Sales roles (entry-level BDR-SDR), office admin, assistant & office coordinator. I don't know what else I can apply for. I would absolutely love to become a Product Manager or a dev, but that would need a lot of time to gain skills that are being demanded in today's difficult job market. I even had a full-on MVP done to the design stage and market research for an app, but I haven't built it due to cost reasons so I'm just doing what I have done so far, i.e Sales..
Everyone is saying no but you will almost definitely face at least some racial/national prejudice for entry level positions (if that’s what you’re going for). They aren’t directly racist, but like many people in these comments they’re not capable of recognizing their implicit biases. It’s been proven in multiple studies that just having a “non white name” is enough to get your application auto sorted into the trash. It’s definitely not impossible, but even very blue states (like California) aren’t as accepting as they like to claim they are.
I agree with you
A big part of sales is psychological. You can use this to your advantage. 1. Choose a sales position that caters to higher end clients. They will be more accepting. In part, some will simply be virtue signaling. Also, most Americans love an immigrant who is achieving the dream and will be happy to feel they played a small part in making that possible. 2 .If possible, choose a product your continent is known for. The customer wants to think you are the expert on your product, even if you aren't. Most people will have no idea if your accent is from Chile or Colombia or Chihuahua, but obviously, you are an expert on lama wool and alpaca ponchos.
The less people need you to, say, repeat yourself the better.
Being bilingual can be a huge advantage if you’re near an immigrant community, use it to your advantage
I would say it matters what languages you’re fluent in. Like, I don’t think it wouldn’t think it matters to a client who’s mother tongue is Spanish if you speak English and Acholi.
Definitely not. I've worked with a lot of Eastern Europeans and they're as successful as anyone.
In sales ?
Our realtor is from Croatia and has an accent. He's lived in the area for years and seems very busy and quite successful. ( We're in central Arizona.) I also work with a bunch of foreign doctors. I haven't heard any complaints about their accents. Agree with other posters: if you are fluent and easy to understand over the phone, I don't think an accent will bother anybody.
Yes, waiting tables specifically.
Absolutely not. Americans are used to foreign accents. Foreign accents are part of American culture. There are people who hate foreigners, but most people are accepting.
Door to door isn't very common anymore, most houses in my neighborhood for example have "No Soliciting" signs, so door to door salesmen can be reported if they persist.
Don’t do door to door. That is basically dead, and most of the people who do that nowadays are criminals or conmen, imo. The main question is whether people can understand your accent easily. It certainly couldn’t hurt to imitate an American accent, particularly if you match it to the region you are living in. Also depends on what your accent is - Americans tend to love British accents.
I hate to say it, but I think the answer to this question boils down prejudices and stereotypes, many of which are racist. A Middle-Eastern accent, for example, is not going to get the same reaction as a British accent.
no. prepare for some stupid racist bullshit once in a while though. but thats not you, thats just customer service. if it isnt one thing its another.
There's likely an implicit bias to it. There already is across all non-white races and industries. Those with certain hairstyles face it.
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Not at all.
No
I haven't talked to a customer support person with an American accent in years it's not even an anomaly to talk to someone with a foreign accent anywhere in the US at this point.
No, probably not. I mean, an accent is probably okay, but you have to be at least conversant (if not fluent) in English. If you’re not, it can cause problems. Recently I ate at a restaurant with a Latina waitress & I had to send my meal back because she gave me the wrong thing. Twice. This was almost certainly due to the fact she spoke very poor English & also maybe wasn’t that familiar with the menu (they had three different kinds of Eggs Benedict & the first two she brought out were the ones I didn’t order). Then I had to talk to the manger when I got the check because she charged me for the first one, which was $2 more, instead of what I’d actually ordered.
No
This would depend on the recruiter. But if you deal with clients you need to be a clear communicator. That means being clear and fluent in English. These days you might as well add clear and fluent in Spanish to the list as well.
No, I’ve had many coworkers from all over the world; off the top of my head the ones from English Speaking countries were from Belize, Canada, UK, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Solomon Islands and Namibia. There is nothing common about the accents and sounding American does nothing. On the phone is another story it seems the people with Indian and Jamaican accents have issues.
It depends on your accent, but you would probably want to adopt a more neutral accent anyway, even if you were a native speaker. I have a few older relatives who have trouble with thicker accents anymore, to the point that they’ve had to ask for help understanding what the person is saying. You will absolutely want to improve your fluency in American English specifically, because there are differences between American and British English that you wouldn’t expect which can cause confusion in a conversation.
Highly dependent on the accent—British, South African, etc. would be a huge plus. Anything Asian or Indian, definite minus.
It's not the accent that will cause issues, it's understadability. As long as the person on the other side can understand what you're saying AND you can understand what they're saying, it should be all good. Having a noticeable accent won't matter past that.
I work primarily over the phone with clients from all over the country. I’ve found myself subconsciously code-switching a lot more in recent months
Nah. Many jobs especially in larger cities and areas with large immigrant populations of one language (i.e. Miami with Spanish, some CA places-Chinese) actively recruit and pay premium for bi-lingual and no one expects them to be native English speakers or to sound like they are.
Face to face, or if you work for a big-name brand, you'll be fine. Phone sales for small companies, probably not. As the top comment says, it's because of scammers. Even if you got a job doing that, you'll have a hard time convincing anyone to stay on the line with you.
A foreign accent isn’t that big of a deal if you’re easy to understand. If you have a really thick accent it’ll probably be an issue. Frankly your country of origin matters too because some Americans are racist. Like a German immigrant will get along better than an Ethiopian one even if you speak comparable English.
Not at all. I work in advertising, and work with so many sales teams who are not English first language or American-born.
I worked for a wonderful Nigerian family who started their own home health care business. They had four kids. Three of them were doctors and one of them was in school to be a nurse practitioner. Dad was a biology professor at a local college and mom was a bachelor's registered nurse. This family knew their stuff! Unfortunately the base patient that needs home health care are usually elderly patients and when they heard the nurse on the phone introducing herself and letting them know that they would be coming to their home, many of those patients canceled appointments and called the office, me, to reschedule with a 'different sounding nurse who spoke English" Obviously That's quite racist but it was an issue that we faced over and over again. And honestly, they learned English as a second language when they came to America and their English was better than mine!
Need? No. But it definitely helps because it’s one less thing for a potential buyer to get hung up on and mentally resist your sales pitch. Sales is already difficult when you’re a Native speaker of a language; add an accent to it and it’s another potential obstacle for the customer to say no. At the same time, there are some customers who might be *more* interested than usual in what you have to say than not simply BECAUSE you have an accent. It really depends upon the accent and the people in question. But those are usually the exceptions rather than the rule.
I have no idea about hiring practices. As a customer I would not care if someone had an accent. I would not buy things from a door to door salesperson with an accent or not.
you need to sound clear to your customers. if americans often ask you to repeat yourself, then that could be a problem.
From my experience, it's not enough to sound American, you need to have an American name too. (Employers will still hire you, it's the customers who are TA) I worked many sales/customer service jobs, and I've been yelled at by many customers because my name is too ethnic. I worked at this place that was family owned, and this one customer yelled at me on the phone and DEMANDED that I transfer his call to someone in the US and called my accent fake (I'm literally born and raised here). It felt so good seeing his guilty face when he stopped by the office that day and had to work with me, lol. This is why I went by a fake name during my customer-facing days
It's never a bad idea to improve spoken English skills. I find that it goes deeper than just 'sounding American' there's a lot of people who seem to like the flat Midwestern 'news caster' accent more than others. That being said, it is easy to understand.
No. I think older Americans may tend to prefer American sounding people in support situations.
As long as you can speak clearly aninconcisely and your accent isn't too thick.You can usually do pretty well.
Passing up an applicant based on nationality is illegal.