Career in IT for a ESL guy.

Hey guys I'm about to take my A+ exam and I started looking into jobs. I'm pretty good with computers and I'm currently in college taking network administration classes. The thing I'm worried about is that my English isn't very good and that it will be very hard for me to find a job. I moved to Chicago from Europe 4 years ago, finished high school and now I'm in college. I still have an accent (probably always will) and sometimes I'm making grammatical mistakes or pronounce words in a weird way

. Reading this forum I learned that everyone pretty much starts at help-desk kind of jobs that involves a lot of talking with other people over the phone, I'm worried that I couldn't solve some problems because my English is keeping me away from it. I understand pretty much everything that people are saying and I can explain them how to fix a simple problem, but it's kinda hard for me to explain more difficult problems, in my mind I know how to fix it, but I can't convert my knowledge into words, if you know what I mean.

So what I would like to hear from you guys is what do you think about it. Would you hire a guy with English as his not first language? Maybe I'm just over thinking this whole deal and the employee doesn't care if I'm fluent in English as long as I do a good job fixing computers

But on the other hand job listings put "Excellent communications skills" at the top of their requirements list.

Thanks.

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Comments

dynamik

I'm pretty sure most of the people working in all those call centers in India are ESL

It sounds like you just need some more practice discussing complex scenarios with people. There's a decent number of ESL people here, and they're doing fine.

Welcome to the forums

the_Grinch

You type English very well, I really wouldn't worry about it too much. Your in college taking classes and I think that will definitely help you out! Good luck!

markk2008

As long as you can explain well enough and make yourself understood it doesn't really matter I don't think, you don't have to be 100% fluent in order to talk to people, like the_Grinch has said, your typed english is very good and as have more college classes your english will improve.

I don't see a problem with you applying for helpdesk jobs

impelse

Just keep looking. Try to apply for field techs. After that you will improve, my english is not good, but still I am a Network Admin.

Raul

markk2008

Something will turn up eventually, it always does.

Trust me, like Raul says just keep on trying.