How You Speak Has A Huge Impact On Your Chances Of Getting A Job, Claims New Study

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A study has revealed that interviewers can accurately figure out an interviewee’s socio-economic status based on the way they speak, and impact their chances of getting hired in the company. 

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Socio-economic status comprises of income, education and occupation status. The study reveals that these brief perceptions considerably influence hiring managers, who favour job applicants from higher social classes.

According to Michael Kraus, Assistant Professor at the Yale University, “Our study shows that even during the briefest interactions, a person’s speech patterns shape the way people perceive them, including assessing their competence and fitness for a job.”

These findings by the researchers are based on five distinct studies that were conducted. The first four analysed the accuracy of people figuring out social class of people based on just a few seconds of speech.DON’T MISSPrevious

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The researchers discovered that reciting seven random words are adequate to allow people to perfectly analyse the person’s socio-economic class with stunning accuracy.

As per their discovery, speech in accordance with subjective standards for English as well as digital standards (voices used in tech products such as Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa) is recognised as a higher-social class.

Researchers were able to deduce that pronunciation of words aids in the accurate analysis of the person.

The fifth study was finding out how this works in a hiring situation. The researchers recruited 20 skilled job candidates from varied socio-economic backgrounds for an entry-level manager position at Yale University.

Before they actually sat for the formal interview, the candidates were recorded in a conversation where they were asked to describe themselves.

A sample constituting of 274 individuals with hiring experience were given a chance to hear these recordings. Some from these were just given written transcripts to analyse the socio-economic status.

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The ones who heard audio recordings were more accurate in analysing the socio-economic status of candidates than the ones reading transcripts. 

Without any knowledge of the candidate’s actual qualifications, the hiring managers found candidates with higher socio-economic status to be fit for the job instead of the applicants with a lower-social class. 

What’s odder is the fact that the ones with higher-social class were offered better salaries and signing bonuses than the ones from the lower social classes.

BY:Monit Khanna