Applying to agencies? Expect to contact them two to six times

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! The T4T “school year” is off to a great start, with an enthusiastic group of people in the four-week Getting Started course, and an excellent direct client marketing master class last week! Next up is Translating official documents from French to English, on October 7 (kind of a bonus class since I don’t do many language-specific things!) and then Aiming for six figures as a freelancer, on October 23.

This week’s topic: If you’re applying to agencies, expect to contact them two to six times before they send you work

But first…is it still worth applying to agencies? I thought you might ask that, so I wrote a blog post on that topic a few months ago; you can read it here.

Anyone applying to agencies has this fantasy: We send off an application to an agency, and they respond right away! “We have a 10,000-word project, just waiting for you!” “Are you booked for next week? We have a five-day conference that needs interpreters!” But it doesn’t usually work that way! Once in a while, perhaps, but typically things go more like this: We apply via the agency’s website, followed by radio silence, and we decide they don’t need us, and we move on.

Where do those online applications go?

It’s easy to think that online applications go to a black hole, but the reality is that they’re probably going to an agency staffed by well-meaning people who have other jobs. It’s rare that small or medium-sized agencies have a vendor manager or recruiter; typically those tasks are given to someone who already has another full-time job. Even at large agencies, the vendor manager(s) or recruiter(s) are probably focused on hard-to-find languages or specializations. If that’s you, you may get a response to your online application, but most of us will not. That doesn’t mean that this step is worthless, but the online application is simply the first step.

Here’s the truth: if you are applying “cold” to an agency (you aren’t being referred by another freelancer who works with them; this is always the best option), you’re probably going to have to contact them two to six times before they send you work.

What are the two to six contacts?

Here’s what I would suggest:

1. Apply via the agency’s website, unless you are looking only for specialized work that they may or may not need, in which case, contact them first. Here’s what I mean: if you’re a Spanish to English legal translator, just go ahead and apply, because there’s a strong chance that the agency provides this service. If you want to translate only for the museum sector, if you do Japanese conference interpreting, if you translate Tagalog to English, it’s worth starting with step three, because you want to make sure that the agency handles this type of work before you apply to them. Also, a pro tip: Use any available opportunity to show that you’re a human, when you fill out the application. If there’s a field called  “Additional information,” “Anything you want to tell us,” etc. never leave it blank. Add something like, “Thank you so much for the opportunity to apply as an English to German patent translator with [name of agency]. I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working together in the near future.”
2. If you get any acknowledgement of receipt, other than an auto-responder, reply to it. If a human responds, even to say, “We’ve received your application and we’ll let you know if we need you,” respond back with something like the “Thank you so much…” message above. Also: nudge. Keep the ball rolling. “Please let me know if you need anything else from me.” “Please let me know what the next steps are.” “Please let me know when I can expect to hear from you about the testing process.” The person responding to you is incredibly busy and you’re one applicant among many, so you need to keep the process moving forward.
3. If you get no response to your online application, start looking for the agency’s staff on LinkedIn. Keep in mind the constraint that LinkedIn has recently imposed on personalized connection requests; in most cases, if you don’t have Premium, you’re limited to five personalized requests per month. You definitely want these connection requests to be personalized. Put the agency’s name into the LinkedIn search box, then click “People,” and you’ll find anyone with the agency’s name in their profile. Ideally, you want a vendor manager, recruiter, or project manager, unless the agency is really small, in which case it matters less who you contact. Send a connection request, with a simple message: “Hello Melissa, I hope you’re doing well! I recently applied for English to Japanese translation work via [name of agency]’s website; I’m just following up and inquiring about next steps.” You can write 300 characters and that’s 186 characters, so even with a short signoff and your name, it will fit.
4. At the same time, use any contact information that you can find on the agency’s website. E-mail their general info@ e-mail address if you can’t find anything else. Just keep plugging away until a human responds to you. Call them on the phone if you’re feeling brave.
5. Agencies all have mailing addresses! I’m a big fan of sending handwritten things in the mail, but that’s harder with so many people working from home. Still, the agency itself should have a mailing address that shouldn’t be too difficult to find, either on their website or in an association directory. For the cost of a card and a stamp, write something simple: “I recently applied for Italian to English scientific translation work via your website; I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working together soon.” Enclose a business card. I know this seems kind of retro/shot in the dark, but go ahead and try it; it can’t hurt, and no one sends anything interesting in the mail these days.
6. Wash, rinse, repeat. Years ago, I gave a series of webinars for a translation agency, and the owner said something simple but really helpful: When you’re applying to agencies, keep following up until you get a yes or a no. With direct clients, you don’t want to be a pest, because you don’t know if they need you. Agencies need translators and interpreters, whether or not they need you specifically. Keep at it until the agency responds in some way: we need you, we don’t need you, here’s our testing process, here’s what else we need from you.

I personally could not meet my income goals translating (not interpreting) exclusively for agencies. I also have zero interest in editing machine translation, which is the direction that a lot of agencies have gone. And yet, there are still good agencies out there, or agencies that have larger budgets for specific projects. I hope that these techniques are helpful if you’re in the agency application cycle!