Accent on Career: Monika Czajkowska

NAME: Monika Czajkowska

What is your first language?  Polish

How many years have you been in Canada?  Five years in June.

What was your job in your home country?  The best job ever - student :)

Where do you see yourself working in five years?  Hopefully for my current employer, slowly building my career towards being a financial analyst.

How has taking Accent Reduction lessons changed your life?  I think at some point I just accepted the fact that sometimes I will be mispronouncing words and people might have difficulties understanding me , but these classes gave me great tools to work on improving my pronunciation and the flow of my speech. Even if people are not doing it on purpose, they are judging you by your speech. A big part of my job is interacting with a lot of people every day; either in person or on the phone. Being more understandable or having fewer situations where people can’t understand you is very important.

Tell us about a time your accent caused difficulty?  I can’t really tell you one particular story, but every now and then I have to repeat myself several times before the person I talk to can actually understand the word I said.

What is the greatest strength you can offer your employer?  My perfectionism and my ability to learn and adapt quickly.

What advice do you have for other Internationally Trained Professionals (ITP)?  Not to hold back - Canada is hungry for hard working professionals. Polish your English and make yourself competitive.

What can be done to assist the transition of ITP’s?  Understanding on both the part of the employer and the employee.

What do you want from an employer? A chance to grow and learn.