Accent Bias in Hiring: What Employers Should Know
A job interview evaluates more than the words a candidate says.
The way those words sound can influence how the person is perceived.
Research on hiring has found that candidates speaking with what studies classify as standard accents are, on average, evaluated more favorably for employment than candidates speaking with non-standard accents. A 2024 meta-analysis combining 139 effect sizes and 4,576 participants found a measurable difference in perceived hireability between the two groups (Spence et al., 2024).
That does not mean every employer consciously favors one accent over another.
It also does not mean spoken communication is irrelevant to jobs where communicating clearly is an essential function.
The more useful question is: Are employers evaluating whether a candidate can communicate effectively for the job—or whether the candidate simply sounds familiar?
That distinction matters for workplace diversity because accents can be associated with national origin, ethnicity, and other linguistic characteristics.
Federal employment guidance also recognizes that distinction. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission states that an employer may base a decision on accent when the accent materially interferes with job performance. A merely discernible accent, by itself, is not enough (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], 2016).
Note: This article provides general information about hiring and workplace diversity. It is not legal advice.
What to Know About Accent Bias in Hiring
Research and federal guidance point to several important distinctions:
A large meta-analysis found that candidates speaking with standard accents were generally rated as more hireable than candidates speaking with non-standard accents.
The difference was larger for jobs involving more communication.
Differences in how understandable candidates were did not significantly explain the overall accent-related hiring effect in that meta-analysis.
Perceptions of social status were associated with the degree of accent bias.
A 2026 experimental study found that participants rated Standard American English speakers more favorably than Turkish-accented English speakers for both English- and math-tutoring roles.
Neither study establishes that all employers discriminate against candidates because of accent.
EEOC guidance allows employers to consider spoken communication when it genuinely matters to job performance, but distinguishes an accent that materially interferes with communication from one that is simply noticeable.
(Kuyucu et al., 2026; Spence et al., 2024; EEOC, 2016)
What Is Accent Bias?
Accent bias generally refers to differences in how people are evaluated because of the way they speak.
In hiring research, this can involve perceptions of traits such as competence, employability, status, or suitability for a position.
Importantly, researchers do not always use the word accent in the same way people use it casually.
Everyone speaks with an accent.
Studies often compare accents that are socially treated as standard within a particular context with accents categorized as non-standard, including regional or foreign accents.
Those terms describe categories used in the research. They do not mean one accent is inherently clearer, more intelligent, more professional, or linguistically better than another.
That distinction becomes important when employers try to separate actual job-related communication requirements from social familiarity.
Does Accent Affect Hiring Decisions?
Research suggests that it can.
Jessica Spence and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that combined 139 effect sizes involving 4,576 participants.
Across the studies, candidates speaking with standard accents were perceived as more hireable than candidates speaking with non-standard accents. The overall effect size was d = 0.47 (Spence et al., 2024).
The researchers also found that the difference was stronger in jobs with higher communication demands.
That finding makes intuitive sense: how someone communicates may be more relevant to a job requiring extensive spoken interaction than to a role where oral communication plays a smaller part.
But another result complicates the explanation.
Is Accent Bias Just About Being Harder to Understand?
The meta-analysis examined whether comprehensibility explained why candidates with non-standard accents received lower hiring evaluations.
It did not find relative comprehensibility to be a significant moderator of the overall accent bias observed across the studies (Spence et al., 2024).
In other words, the difference in hiring evaluations could not simply be explained by saying:
“Candidates with non-standard accents were harder to understand.”
The researchers also found that perceptions of a candidate’s social status were associated with the degree of accent bias. Accent-related differences were particularly pronounced for candidates with foreign rather than regional accents and for female candidates in the studies included in the analysis (Spence et al., 2024).
That does not establish why every individual hiring decision occurs.
A meta-analysis identifies patterns across studies; it does not tell us what motivated a particular interviewer.
But the findings suggest employers should be cautious about assuming an unfavorable reaction to an accent is automatically a judgment about communication ability.
Those may not be the same thing.
What Does More Recent Research Show?
A 2026 study published in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment provides another example.
Researchers İrem Kuyucu, Helin Erden, Tuba P. Öztürk, and Junko Kanero asked 391 Turkish-speaking university students to evaluate candidates applying for tutoring positions.
Candidates were presented as applying for either:
an English-tutoring position, where language was directly relevant; or
a math-tutoring position, where language was less central to the subject matter.
The candidates spoke either Standard American English or Turkish-accented English (Kuyucu et al., 2026).
Participants consistently rated the Standard American English speakers as more competent and preferred them for both the English and math tutoring positions.
The researchers found that the effect of accent on hiring preferences was mediated by higher competence ratings given to the standard-accent speakers (Kuyucu et al., 2026).
That study requires important context.
The participants were Turkish-speaking university students, not professional recruiters, and the experiment focused on tutoring roles.
Its findings should not be generalized to every employer, country, industry, or hiring decision.
What it does provide is a recent experimental example showing that accent can influence perceptions of competence even among evaluators who themselves are non-native English speakers.
Why Accent Bias Matters for Workplace Diversity
Workplace diversity is partly about who gets access to opportunity.
Accent can become part of that conversation because the way someone speaks may reflect linguistic characteristics connected to national origin, ethnicity, or cultural background.
None of those characteristics automatically tells an employer whether someone can perform a job.
At the same time, some jobs genuinely require a particular level of spoken communication.
That is why the distinction is not: Accent matters versus accent never matters.
It is: Does this person’s speech actually interfere with an essential part of the job?
That question is also central to federal guidance.
What Does the EEOC Say About Accent Discrimination?
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on national origin.
The EEOC explains that national-origin discrimination can include unfavorable treatment because of a person’s accent, ethnicity, country or part of the world they come from, or perceived ethnic background (EEOC, n.d.).
However, federal guidance does not say employers must ignore communication ability.
The EEOC states that an employment decision may legitimately be based on accent when two conditions are present:
effective spoken communication in English is required to perform the job; and
the person’s accent materially interferes with that communication.
(EEOC, 2016)
The agency specifically distinguishes between a discernible accent and an accent that actually interferes with the communication skills necessary for the job.
Its guidance says employers should have evidence supporting that conclusion rather than relying on unsupported assumptions (EEOC, 2016).
That distinction is crucial.
When Can Communication Ability Be a Legitimate Hiring Requirement?
Communication requirements can be legitimate.
A customer-service representative who needs to communicate rapidly with customers in a noisy environment may have different spoken-communication requirements from someone whose role involves little verbal interaction.
The EEOC’s guidance gives examples of jobs where effective spoken communication may legitimately matter and says accent can be considered if it materially interferes with performing those duties (EEOC, 2016).
The key is connecting the evaluation to the actual job.
For example, employers can ask:
What kind of communication does this role require?
Does the employee need to:
explain complex information verbally;
communicate in emergencies;
handle customer calls;
teach or present information;
deliver instructions accurately; or
speak with people in environments where clarity is particularly difficult?
If spoken communication is important, employers can evaluate that ability.
But evaluating communication ability is different from evaluating whether a candidate sounds like the interviewer.
What Employers Should Avoid Assuming
Research on accent bias provides a reason to question several shortcuts that can appear during hiring.
“They Don’t Sound Professional”
Professionalism is not a specific communication competency.
If an interviewer uses words such as professional, polished, or executive presence to describe speech, it can be useful to ask: What observable job requirement are we actually evaluating?
If the answer is clarity, the employer can assess clarity.
If the answer is vocabulary, the employer can assess whether the person’s language ability meets the role’s requirements.
If the answer is simply that the person’s accent sounds unfamiliar, that is a different judgment.
“Customers Might Not Like the Accent”
EEOC guidance states that an employer cannot justify a discriminatory employment action based on coworker, customer, or client discomfort or preference regarding accent (EEOC, 2016).
That means customer preference and actual inability to communicate effectively are not interchangeable.
“A Strong Accent Means Weak English”
Accent and language proficiency are different concepts.
A person can speak grammatically correct, fluent, understandable English while retaining a noticeable accent.
The EEOC’s guidance focuses on whether the accent actually interferes with job performance—not whether it is noticeable (EEOC, 2016).
How Can Employers Evaluate Communication More Fairly?
The sources reviewed for this article do not establish one universal method for eliminating accent bias in hiring.
But the evidence and federal guidance support making communication assessment more specific.
1. Identify Whether Spoken Communication Is Actually Essential
Before evaluating a candidate’s speech, employers can define how important spoken communication is to the role.
For some jobs it is central.
For others, it may have little connection to successful performance.
This helps prevent communication standards from becoming broader than the work actually requires.
2. Define What Effective Communication Means for the Job
Instead of asking whether someone “sounds professional,” define the skill.
For example:
Can the person explain information accurately?
Can listeners understand the essential message?
Can the person respond appropriately to questions?
Can they communicate safely and effectively in the environment where the job occurs?
Specific criteria make it easier to distinguish communication performance from accent familiarity.
3. Use the Same Standard Across Candidates
If communication is being assessed, candidates competing for the same position should be evaluated against the same relevant expectations.
The objective should be to determine whether each candidate can perform the communication requirements of the role—not whether one person’s speech sounds more familiar to the interviewer.
4. Be Careful With Subjective Competence Judgments
The research matters here.
Spence and colleagues found that comprehensibility did not significantly explain the overall accent-related hiring effect in their meta-analysis (Spence et al., 2024).
Kuyucu and colleagues also found that candidates speaking Standard American English received higher competence ratings in their experimental setting, and those competence judgments helped explain hiring preferences (Kuyucu et al., 2026).
Neither finding proves that every competence judgment involving an accent is biased.
They do suggest employers should ask whether a competence judgment is tied to actual evidence about performance—or to assumptions triggered by how someone sounds.
Accent Bias Is Not Only About Foreign Accents
Accent-related workplace issues are often discussed in relation to immigrants or people who learned English outside the United States.
But accent and speech patterns can also intersect with race and regional identity.
EEOC race-discrimination guidance states that employment discrimination involving cultural characteristics linked to race or ethnicity can include accent or manner of speech. The agency gives the example that making an employment decision because someone has a so-called “Black accent” or “sounds White” can violate Title VII if the speech does not materially interfere with job duties (EEOC, 2006).
That provides another reason to avoid treating one way of speaking as the neutral definition of professionalism.
An employee does not need to sound identical to colleagues or customers to be capable of communicating effectively.
Why This Matters for Diversity.com
A broader talent pool will naturally include people who do not all sound the same.
That includes candidates from different regions of the United States, immigrants, multilingual professionals, and people whose speech reflects different racial, ethnic, or cultural communities.
Inclusive hiring does not require employers to ignore communication skills.
It requires something more practical: Evaluate the communication the job actually requires rather than using familiarity of accent as a shortcut for competence.
That distinction protects hiring standards rather than weakening them.
If a role genuinely requires highly effective oral communication, employers should evaluate that ability.
But a qualified candidate should not lose an opportunity simply because their voice does not sound like the voices already inside the organization.
Final Thoughts
An accent tells you something about how a person speaks.
It does not automatically tell you how well they think, how effectively they work, or how capable they are of performing a job.
Research shows that accent can influence hiring evaluations—and that the difference cannot always be explained simply by whether a candidate is understandable.
That creates a practical question for employers: Are we evaluating communication ability, or familiarity?
For jobs where spoken communication is genuinely important, employers can and should assess whether candidates can meet the requirements of the role.
But those requirements should be connected to the work itself.
For Diversity.com, that is where accent bias belongs in the broader conversation about fair opportunity.
A workforce that draws talent from different communities, regions, and countries will not sound uniform.
It does not need to.
The goal is not for employers to ignore communication.
It is to make sure that sounding different is not mistaken for being less capable.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is accent bias in hiring?
Accent bias refers to differences in how job candidates are evaluated because of the way they speak.
A 2024 meta-analysis of 139 effect sizes involving 4,576 participants found that candidates speaking with standard accents were generally perceived as more hireable than candidates speaking with non-standard accents (Spence et al., 2024).
Does having an accent make someone less qualified for a job?
No general conclusion like that is supported by the evidence.
Whether communication ability matters depends on the actual requirements of a particular job.
An accent itself does not establish that a person cannot communicate effectively.
Can an employer legally consider an applicant’s accent?
In some circumstances.
EEOC guidance states that an employer may base an employment decision on accent when effective spoken communication is required for the position and the person’s accent materially interferes with their ability to communicate effectively for the job (EEOC, 2016).
Is accent discrimination a form of national-origin discrimination?
Accent can be closely linked with national origin.
The EEOC states that national-origin discrimination may include treating an employee or applicant unfavorably because of their accent or other characteristics associated with national origin (EEOC, n.d.).
Whether a particular employment decision violates Title VII depends on the facts and applicable law.
Does research prove employers intentionally discriminate against accented candidates?
No.
Studies can identify differences in evaluations and test possible explanations, but they do not establish that every individual employer or interviewer intentionally discriminates against accented candidates.
The meta-analysis by Spence and colleagues found an overall difference in perceived hireability across the studies it examined, while the 2026 Kuyucu study documented differences in competence ratings and candidate preferences within its specific experimental setting (Kuyucu et al., 2026; Spence et al., 2024).
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Sources & References
Kuyucu, İ., Erden, H., Öztürk, T. P., & Kanero, J. (2026). To hire or not to hire: The influence of accents on hiring decisions. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 34(1), Article e70044. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.70044
Spence, J. L., Hornsey, M. J., Stephenson, E. M., & Imuta, K. (2024). Is your accent right for the job? A meta-analysis on accent bias in hiring decisions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 50(3), 371–386. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221130595
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2006, April 19). Section 15: Race and color discrimination. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/section-15-race-and-color-discrimination
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2016, November 18). EEOC enforcement guidance on national origin discrimination. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/eeoc-enforcement-guidance-national-origin-discrimination
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). National origin discrimination. Retrieved September 22, 2026, from https://www.eeoc.gov/national-origin-discrimination
