This week, I thought I’d take a look at options for in-house jobs. The reader who asked this question is interested in jobs as a translator, editor, or project manager; that covers a lot of bases, but I’ll also talk about options for interpreters and writers. 

Also: If you’re in the opposite situation (in-house, looking to go freelance), I wrote a bonus post for the T4T blog, specifically for government and military linguists/language analysts thinking about shifting to the private sector. 

The changing landscape

As I said, it’s a turbulent time in the world. In particular, translator/interpreter jobs with the U.S. government–typically one of my go-to recommendations–are looking a lot less stable than in the past. The situation seems to change day-by-day, if not within the course of one day. Most employees of the U.S. federal government were offered what might be termed a buy-out (resign by February 6 and get full pay and benefits until September), which was then amended to not include defense or intelligence workers, and then perhaps put on hold by a court order. Really, who knows. But regardless of where this heads, I would not apply for a U.S. government linguist/language analyst position right now, if any of those positions are even open, unless you have a very high tolerance for uncertainty. 

In typical times, this would be one of my first suggestions. I worked for three years as an FBI contract linguist in the early 2000s. That job really helped me continue freelancing until I had enough of my own clients to earn a viable living, and I enjoyed the work (mostly listening to audio surveillance footage). And U.S. federal government linguist/language analyst jobs typically pay well: from people I’ve talked to and some cursory research on LinkedIn, I’d estimate a starting salary of around 80-95K plus federal government benefits for your whole family. But let’s take this option off the table for now. 

What are your goals? 

Perhaps you’ve already thought about this and you don’t need me to talk you through it. But before you dive into an in-house job search, make sure you’ve identified your goals. Are you looking for:

• A more predictable income stream than you get from freelancing
• A more predictable schedule than you get from freelancing
• Benefits (for those who aren’t familiar with the U.S. system, employer-provided health insurance and retirement plans are a big deal here) 
• Freedom from having to hustle for work
• Co-workers, instead of working by yourself all the time
• Something else

These answers can help guide your search. If you’re hungry for co-workers, you probably don’t want to apply for fully remote jobs. If you want a stable salary and good benefits, maybe don’t apply to startups. 

What are you going to give up?

Most decisions in life have tradeoffs. Again, maybe you’ve thought this through, but I wanted to mention it. Particularly if you have young kids, you’ll need to consider what you’re going to do with them during school vacations and whether extra child care could consume a significant portion of your income. If you have time-consuming non-work interests, are those going to align with a salaried job on a set schedule? This is partially a matter of how much you value the “free” in freelancing. For me, that’s a lot: I’ve always felt that in order for me to take an in-house job, it would have to pay at least the cash equivalent of what I earn from freelancing, plus good benefits and a generous amount of vacation. Maybe you’re of the opposite mindset: you’d rather have the stable salary and benefits than the freedom. 

Where to look

If you’ve made it this far and you’re still convinced, let’s help you find a job. I think you’ll want to go about this in two ways:

• Applying to open positions that you find or hear about
• Prospecting for opportunities that aren’t advertised 

I’ve been out of the salaried job market for too long to add anything helpful here, but I have a number of twentysomethings in my life (my daughter and her friends) who are on the internship or job market. They’ve told me that the return rate on job applications is about the same as when you’re prospecting for freelance clients. Case in point: my daughter is currently searching for a summer engineering internship; she applied to 90+ internships, got maybe five interviews, and so far has gotten three offers, and that’s actually much better than her return rate from last year (first internship year, between year 2 and year 3 of college/university), which was more like 90 applications to get two interviews and one offer. Set your expectations appropriately and aim to apply for a lot of jobs.

Start with LinkedIn

I would start on LinkedIn.  As long as you don’t mind people knowing that you’re looking for a job, put the “Open to Work” banner on your LinkedIn profile, and make a LinkedIn post about your search. Be as specific as possible. “I’m a Spanish to English translator and editor with 9 years of experience as a freelancer. I’d like to transition from freelancing to an in-house job, and I’m looking for a full-time position as a Spanish to English translator, a translation reviser, an English-only editor, or a translation project manager. I’m most interested in fully remote positions, although I’m open to working in an office in the Chicago area.” Just put it out there, because networking and referrals will be a good source of leads for you. 

Next, I would set up an alert on LinkedIn, although you’re likely to get a lot of irrelevant alerts for languages you don’t do. Go on LinkedIn and click “Jobs” in the top navigation bar, and you’ll get (or at least I get) a bar asking you, are you actively looking for a job or casually looking for a job. After you answer that question, you’ll be prompted to enter criteria for a job search alert. I would recommend doing this, why not, even though LinkedIn’s algorithm seems to send you anything and everything with the word “translation” or “interpreting” in it. 

One thing you’ll definitely find on LinkedIn: project manager jobs with agencies. Those seem to be relatively plentiful, presumably because people don’t tend to stay too long in those positions. 

Another thing you’ll glean from LinkedIn: intel about who is hiring. In the “suggested jobs for you” section on LinkedIn, I saw multiple jobs at a software development company called Epic. They seem to be hiring translators for multiple languages. They state right away that the job requires you to move to Wisconsin, but point being, you can get a sense of companies that are actively hiring, then go to their websites and see what’s there: maybe you can set up an alert for new positions, or contact them directly. 

Specialized job search sites

Next, I would look at specialized job search sites for your specializations. Examples include Devex for international development (another sector in turmoil right now, but worth looking at), and all of the specialized job search sites listed in this article on the muse, including finance, architecture, media, tourism, etc. The chance of finding a translator/interpreter/editor job on here may not be huge, but you may find something (I’ve found freelance clients on Devex), and as with LinkedIn, you may find companies that are hiring for other positions and may need you. You might also try FlexJobs, a site that lists only remote and hybrid jobs. For what it’s worth, I put “translator” into the FlexJobs, there were some decent-looking results; likewise for “editor.” I’ve heard FlexJobs promoted or endorsed on a couple of the remote work/digital nomad podcasts I listen to. 

Under the radar

Poke around under the radar. For example, a fellow student in my conference interpreting program told me about IAMLAPD, a site that advertises positions within the UN system. I’m in a couple of WhatsApp groups for freelance translation and interpreting work; maybe such things exist for in-house jobs? 

Above the radar

Finally, go above the radar. If you’re interested in project manager jobs, contact all of your current clients and tell them this. A client who already knows you is much more likely to tell you about a job that’s upcoming but not listed yet.

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Toward the end of 2024, I felt like I needed some new perspectives in my business. I’ve been a freelancer for a long time, which has its pluses and minuses:

• Experience is an asset in many aspects of freelancing. With experience comes confidence, and experience also tends to bring access to clients who want to throw money at a problem and get it solved quickly and well. 
• But, experienced freelancers (including, but not limited to me!) also tend toward complacency (the feeling that well-paying work will always be there, which isn’t always true), “this is the way I do it because this is the way I’ve always done it,” and a resistance to trying new things. 
• Even experienced and successful freelancers get in ruts and feel frustrated. As I wrote in my 2024 wrap-up post, I’m not dissatisfied with how much I earned last year ($125K), but I’m frustrated that I set a goal of 140-150K (the freelance equivalent of a six-figure salaried job) in 2021 and I’m still not there. 

My first initiative was to join a few groups for freelance writers. I figured that “word people” have a lot in common, regardless of the specifics, and that these would be good places to get some fresh input. This proved to be correct, with the bonuses that:

• Many freelance writers market a lot, so they have a lot of input on marketing techniques, and they normalize the idea that it takes a lot of marketing to find good clients.
• Many freelance writers work for clients with large budgets (as in the example I gave last week, of a writer who earns $15,000 a month from three clients total), so it doesn’t seem weird to want those types of results for yourself.  
• At least some freelance writers earn what I would consider a lot of money; one of the writer groups I’m in has a substantial sub-group for people earning more than 200K a year. I’m not at that level, but I feel like I can get some good input on how to get there. 

I was already feeling energized by the ideas I got from these groups. Tip #1: If you need some fresh ideas in your business, get outside the echo chamber of the people you usually talk to. Join some groups for people in an adjacent line of work, or related to one of your specializations. Hang out with more people who are the kind of freelancer you’d like to become.

Enter the idea of a business coach 

I joined Jennifer Goforth Gregory‘s Facebook group for content marketing writers (it’s great!), and decided to attend a few events put on by the group members. This led me to a free question and answer session by Treasa Edmond, (not an affiliate deal), who is a writer, business coach, and the host of the Boss Responses podcast. I really liked Treasa’s style as a person and a businessperson, and a couple of people in the Jennifer Gregory group mentioned that they were doing individual coaching with Treasa. This sparked an idea: maybe I should do that too! More on the specifics in a moment, but first…

Why work with a business coach?

Now that I’m on the tail end of coaching (I chose Treasa’s three-month VIP Business Accelerator and started at the end of November), I think there are three main reasons you might want to work with a business coach:

• To get help in turning a brain dump into a plan (that was me)
• To feel accountable to someone else for working toward your business goals (I don’t need help with the follow-through aspect, but it was definitely helpful to know I had to report back to Treasa)
• To get insider tips on breaking into a new market (this was not my goal, but for example if I wanted to get into ghostwriting, something I’ve though about in the past, I think I would work one-on-one with a coach in that market) 

In my experience, most freelancers who seek business coaching make a few mistakes:

• Expecting significant results from a small investment of time and money. I now see why most business coaches require a three-month commitment; because it really takes that long to see some changes. 
• Mis-identifying what they do and don’t need help with. To be fair, you don’t know what you don’t know about yourself. But, because I know that I’m an Upholder, I know that I basically always follow through on something I’ve committed to doing, but I’m resistant to trying new things and I’m very risk- averse. Maybe you’re the opposite: you need someone to rein you in! Either way, it helps to know this before you select a coach. 
• Focusing on micro goals instead of macro goals. This was me: I approached Treasa with a specific idea of how to increase my income, and I was convinced that it was the way. Treasa immediately got me to zoom out, and focus on ways to make more money that also align with my larger lifestyle goals of personal fulfillment and location-independence. 
• Not being open to pushback from the coach. It’s never fun to be disagreed with, but the coach isn’t there as your yes-person. Treasa strongly disagreed with me on a few things I do in my business, and that was honestly very helpful. 

How things worked out for me 

Treasa’s three-month one-on-one program was perfect for me (again, not an affiliate deal). We did a 90-minute goal-setting session, then met every other week for an hour (six times total), plus did “deep dive” sessions where she taught me how to use Scrivener (something I had been resisting for a while) and how to make PDF workbooks for my courses (this isn’t a new idea, but I’ve never done it before). This cost me $1,500 ($500 per month for three months, and the prices may or may not be the same if you do her program in the future). Coaching was something I wanted to do for myself regardless of the return on investment, but it’s worth noting that I made back that $1,500 twice over, in the first month of coaching, by negotiating higher rates with a couple of new clients. 

If you’re interested in a group coaching program, people in Jennifer Gregory’s group also rave about Jenni Gritters’ Sustain program. 

I achieved a number of things that had been bugging me for a while:

• Scratching a bunch of things off the “ugh” list: a new website for my direct language work thanks to Amanda Calvin’s pre-made website templates, a new e-mail signature thanks to a challenge group in techforword, and The Nudge Kit (password: nudge), a resource I had been meaning to design for about 300 years. 
• Trying some new things for Training for Translators: a free webinar (again, not rocket science but I just never do this), a free preview of March Marketing Madness, using some different graphics in my e-mails, reconfiguring a few classes. 
• Making a timeline for writing books. I tend to write a book when the spirit moves me to write a book (sounds crazy, but it’s true, I have no book-writing strategy whatsoever). I now have one book ready to go (Getting Started as a Freelance Interpreter, to be published this spring), and two more outlined in Scrivener. 
• Raising my rates for a few specific services. I had been feeling for a while that I was under-charging for things like keynote speaking engagements. Treasa helped me work through this (both the logistics and the underlying mindset) and it’s been very successful so far. 

Point being, I think that whatever your goals, coaching can give you some new insights and the perspective of someone who doesn’t share the limiting beliefs that you probably have about yourself. If you’ve worked with a business coach, reply to this e-mail and let me know how it went! Or if you try it, let me know how it works out for you. 

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On Monday (February 24, 2025), I’m going to do a free preview of my March Marketing Madness challenge group. The live session is at 12 noon New York time, or I’ll send you a recording. Register here!

I’ll do a walk-through of how the group works and the platforms that we use, then I’ll answer any questions that you have! I hope to see you there!

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! I hope you’re all doing well! Signups for my March Marketing Madness challenge group are rolling in; learn more here! 

This week’s newsletter topic is: One whale, or a school of fish?? Are you better off with a few large clients, or more, smaller clients? Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each model. 

Larger clients=less juggling, but more risk 

I’m in a couple of really helpful freelance writer groups, and this topic comes up a lot. One writer recently commented, “I set my minimum retainer fee at $5,000 a month, because I want to earn $15,000 a month from three clients.” There are a number of advantages of “whale” clients:

• You get to know them, and they get to know you; you generally do better work, with less oversight from the client. 
• You spend more of your time on the actual work, rather than questions about the client’s procedures. Do they want your edits in Track Changes? How early do you show up for the sound check? Can you send a translation with questions in it? How do they feel about translator’s notes? These things take up your time, and the client’s, and if you’re getting paid a flat rate, they decrease your effective hourly rate. Repeat clients require less “overhead” on your part. 
• You’re not constantly hustling for work. If you’re working with 12 clients a month, chances are they’re cycling in and out, or sending you work only sporadically. This can lead to a lot of hustling on your part, and that’s time that you’re not making money. 
• Your administrative overhead is greatly decreased. Things like invoicing and tracking payments also take time. There’s also a greater risk of something (a missed payment, an invoice you forgot to send) falling through the cracks if you’re managing a lot of clients. 

In exchange for the relative security that large clients offer, you’re going to make some tradeoffs:

• Losing a client that represents 25-50% of your income can be pretty destabilizing. Personally, I also find that losing a large client hurts (financially and emotionally) more than the loss of a small client, because it’s the end of a significant, long-term relationship. It’s harder to avoid taking large client losses personally. 
• It can be harder to say no to a huge client. The client wants you to work on weekends, or asks for unrealistic deadlines, or doesn’t want to pay your minimum charge…and it can be really stressful to approach a rate increase with a huge client (more on this below). 

What about the little fish? 

In general, I prefer large clients (there, I said it!). I dislike all the administrative juggling that small clients require; in some cases I’ve spent almost as much time filling out a client’s onboarding paperwork as I did working for them. I worked for 22 clients in 2023, 19 clients in 2024, and I make about 70% of my translation and interpreting income from my top four clients. Still, there are some advantages to more, smaller clients:

• You’re a lot less tied to each of those clients. If a client ghosts you, it’s not that big of a deal if they only represent 2% of your income. If you decide to implement a significant rate increase, you can afford to lose a few clients if you’re working for 10 clients a month, which is not true if you’re working for three clients. 
• Your risk is much more diversified. In the past month in the U.S., we’ve seen previously ultra-stable sectors (international development, medical research, the government itself) essentially crumble. If you have three clients and they’re all USAID-funded NGOs, you’re in a very tough situation right now. Risk-spreading can be a very good thing. Personally I prefer to diversify in terms of services: translation, interpreting, and teaching/writing/consulting, but you can also diversify by working for 50 clients a year instead of the 19 clients I worked for last year. 

My method

Here’s what I do, which doesn’t mean you should do the same thing; it’s just an example. 

• I’m a lot more receptive to “whale” clients than I used to be, simply because I enjoy working with clients who really feel like partners. I also think this is worth considering: in the U.S., you can be let go from a salaried job without a whole lot more notice than a freelance client would give. This is really different in a lot of other countries, but in the U.S., if you’re an “at will” employee (meaning your employment contract is not for a fixed term), your employer can terminate you with no notice at all. Meaning that you basically have one “client” that represents 100% of your income and has no ongoing obligation to keep you. That perspective has made me less afraid of having large clients. 
• If I had to put some numbers on it, I’d say that the ideal number of significant clients is between three and six. We’re always going to have random and one-off clients. In fact, I enjoy working with individuals, who are nearly always one-off clients. But here, I’m talking about your “backbone” clients. I’d say that ideally, you want to be earning 60-80% of your income from three to six regular clients, then filling in the remaining 20-40% with one-off or sporadic clients. 
• To protect myself against the sudden loss of a major client, I maintain a significant ($10,000) business savings account, and I’m always thinking about a couple of things: who I might try to work for if one of my major clients dissolved, and whether I have any clients I could upgrade to “major” in that situation. I honestly feel like my business savings account is the best weapon here, because I’m not afraid of how I would pay the bills next month if a major client dropped me tomorrow. 

I hope these tips are helpful if you’re thinking about your own mix of clients!

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In episode 12 of the Training for Translators podcast, I talk about how 2024 went from the income, work enjoyment, and quality of life angles, and how I did on my goals for the year. You can listen from the audio player below, or subscribe to Training for Translators in your favorite podcast app!