Here is an interesting post from the blog “Working Languages” about the EU’s shortage of qualified into-English interpreters. The EU blames the candidates’ poor English skills, characterized by overuse of the word “like,” while the blogger argues that a larger culprit is the lack of financial incentives for qualified interpreters.
Translation-targeted resumes: pitfalls and best practices
What with the U.S. economy on a downward slide and the euro continuing its climb above U.S. $1.50, many translators are marketing these days. Following are some tips on writing a translation-targeted résumé that will pass muster with potential clients.
- Let’s start with the obvious but often overlooked: prominently state your language pair(s). It sounds crazy, but I’ve read many a translator’s résumé that buried this most basic information deep within the body of the document. My advice: put your language pair(s) right below your name at the head of the résumé, like “Melissa Thomas, Italian to English Translator.” I would avoid using the generic “Italian Translator;” if you are truly qualified to translate in both directions, put “Italian <> English Translator” or something equivalent.
- Include some sort of geographical information, at least your city. Although I don’t have a P.O. box myself, I think that a P.O. box is a good option for your work address since it avoids having to give out your home address.
- Use a professional e-mail address. This is one of my top five pet peeves when it comes to translator résumés. Anything @hotmail.com or an address such as “beachbabe2008,” “kittykat” or “soccergod” (and I’m barely exaggerating here!) doesn’t belong on a professional résumé and is also likely to be caught by a client’s spam filter. My advice: if you want a free e-mail address or prefer webmail, use Gmail, I think it’s the most “legitimate” of the freebies. I think that the best e-mail address is one that’s associated with a domain name that you own, so that you never have to change it if you change ISPs.
- Double and triple-check your contact information. Make sure it’s a) correct and b) information that is “durable;” don’t include a cell phone number that you might be getting rid of.
- Give specific examples of your translation work without violating client confidentiality. “Extensive experience in patent translation” is much less impressive than “Translated 100+ patents: topics include automotive components, household appliance components and packaging.”
- If you’ve been translating for a substantial amount of time (I would say three to five years, others might go longer or shorter), eliminate all non-translation work experience that isn’t relevant to what you do. If you worked as an engineer and now translate engineering documents, it’s worth leaving that information in. But if you switched careers completely, say from managing a restaurant to doing translation, I wouldn’t include it.
- Include something about your computer setup. If nothing else, this tells the client that you are reasonably technology-savvy. You can also inspire confidence by including “with daily backups,” “dedicated backup computer,” etc. If you use translation environment/CAT tools, you can also include them here, or not, depending on whether you want clients to know that you have them.
- I’ll admit to being a traditionalist when it comes to résumés, and I find fancy graphics, catchy slogans and “creative” formatting to be a turn-off. Also, I think that a photograph, which is common to include on a European-format résumé, is inappropriate on a U.S. one.
- Some features I’ve seen and liked on other people’s résumés: the date when the résumé was updated (makes it clear that the document is up to date); information about recent professional development such as conferences and courses; a few very brief testimonials from past clients.
- Remember that you are applying for language work. Although poor grammar, typos and incorrect punctuation have become commonplace in business documents, be the exception. Show your potential clients that you are worthy of their language work by making your own work error-free.
- Lastly, keep it brief. For use in the U.S., one page is best, two pages is an absolute maximum. Put the most important information first. Remember when your high school guidance counselor broke the news that after you had sweated and cried over your college applications for six months, the average admissions counselor would spend twelve minutes reading them? Have the same attitude toward your résumé and you’re on the right track!
Translation memory discounts: yes, no, maybe?
The issue of translation memory discounts, whereby a translator charges a lower rate for words that appear as repetitions or fuzzy matches in a translation environment/CAT/TM tool, is a contentious one. On the one hand, a client might reasonably argue that changing “press the green button” to “press the red button” doesn’t involve translating four words, but rather one word. On the other hand, a translator might reasonably argue that reading that sentence, finding the difference and changing it takes about as much time or maybe even longer than just typing the translation from scratch.
Translators and clients have a few options to choose from: no TM discount at all; a TM discount only for high level matches such as 100% matches and repetitions; or a graduated pricing structure where fuzzy matches down to a certain percentage, say 75% or even 50%, are priced at a certain percentage of the translator’s per word rate.
At a past ATA conference, I heard a translator argue that there are two translation markets out there: the TM market and the non-TM market, and you have to decide which one you’re going to compete in. While I’m not sure that the choice is as binary as that, I think there’s some truth to the idea. Many legal and financial translators I know are rarely if ever asked to give discounts for repetitions, and use a TM tool mostly for their own consistency and productivity. On the other hand, many technical translators I know would be out of business if they didn’t use TM and give discounts for repetitions.
For some projects, such as product manuals that are regularly updated, it seems to me to border on ridiculous not to give TM discounts since the majority of the text will be recycled. However, I understand translators’ frustrations with clients who nickel and dime over every repeated word simply out of a desire to pay as little as possible for the translation. Your thoughts?
Tips for promoting your freelance services
Michelle Vranizan Rafter’s blog, WordCount, has an excellent post about ways to promote your freelance writing, most of which are applicable to translation as well.
When it comes to things like blogs, e-newsletters, podcasts and even websites, part of the appeal for translators is that the market is quite open. While some demographic groups (moms, artists and political junkies, to name a few!) seem eager to write and podcast as much as, or maybe even more than people want to read, translators are amazingly reticent about putting their thoughts out there. So, it’s comparatively easy to draw a lot of readership or listenership to what you’re doing.
Of the tips that Michelle offers, I also strongly agree with her advice to attend conferences and visit clients in person. As largely web-based workers, I think it’s tempting for translators to think that e-mail does it all, without the need to even get out of your pajamas. In my own experience, every face to face encounter I’ve had with an existing or potential translation client has more than paid for itself.
Lastly, Michelle’s advice about “being the best at what you do” is fantastic. Bottom line, being a compulsive overachiever is very good for business when you’re self-employed. Take a look at Michelle’s post for more excellent tips on marketing!
Why we love our specializations
Over at Yndigo, Glenn Cain has a wonderful post entitled Make mine plain, about, among other things, the push for plain language in legal writing and the resulting effect on legal translators.
As I read this post, I found myself thinking, “but I love legalese,” and I’m actually not kidding here. To me, there are certain situations in which a word like “hereinbelow” or the dreaded “shall” (featured in Glenn’s post) just says it like nothing else can. For some reason, it just sometimes strikes me as less effective to say “later on in this document” or “will” rather than using the legalese equivalent. And sometimes, when I’m really on a roll, the more horrifically complex the sentence I have to translate, the better; why say it the way anyone could when you can say it in your own peculiar way, with as many subordinate clauses as possible?
In addition, I think that we translators are often incredulous at the level of jargon and “ese” (i.e. legalese, computerese) in other people’s specializations while we embrace those characteristics in our own work. Some time ago I was working on a scientific/legal project and queried the project’s scientific translator about the abbreviation “Pa s.” She immediately responded, “oh sure, it’s Pascal-seconds,” a unit used to measure dynamic viscosity. As a non-scientist, my immediate reaction was “Pascal-seconds? As if regular seconds aren’t good enough? Can’t we call it something simpler?,” exactly the opposite of my reaction to the idea of simplifying legalese. My scientific colleague’s answer was “just don’t ever make me translate ‘pursuant to’!”