posted 12 November 2000 11:33            

Seems to me you have been doing tests through the Web. Typically, agencies that advertise on the Net receive hundreds if not thousand of responses. I know because I advertised a couple of jobs online and got so much mail most of it wasn't properly read. Fair enough, I thanked people for their CVs - and I agree with you a thank-you doesn't cost much - but I am me.

Antagonising agencies doesn't seem to me the best idea ;-)
Maybe, just maybe, you need to be more selective who you do tests for. I don't do tests unless I am paid.

The thing here is you are trying to start and it is hard and frustrating at the beginning. I would say it takes about two years before you have a florishing business going.

There is no other way, or else, there is no magic secret that will make you successful overnight. It is about marketing, a lot of marketing - and doing each job to the best of your ability, always.

Most of my clients came to me by word of mouth. I haven't tried tranmail yet -although I am intending to try it in January, when things will probably be quieter -but people swear by it.

Another way of going about it is doing what I call "targeted marketing". Investigate agencies in your city, check their websites, call their project manager, have a laid-back chat, confirm they are interested in hearing from you and stick that CV and marketing letter in the post that same day. Have you tried that?

I once sent ten CVs this way and two of those agencies are now very good clients of mine. But...it took months before they called me with a job!

Good luck...

------------------
Take care

posted 12 November 2000 15:33            

I made my opinion public about this topic in the first ever edition of tranfree...
http://www.translatortips.com/tranfreeone.html

There's an article there called "to test or not to test" which has been reprinted in other translation publications.

It gives background, ideas for deciding whether or not to do tests etc. and ways of avoiding doing small jobs for nothing.

Hope it helps

------------------

Alex Eames
http://www.translatortips.com
helping translators do better business

posted 12 November 2000 16:11            

Unfortunately, this attitude among agencies is all too common. You're right, it only takes ten seconds to at least say thanks for the work, but in busy agencies people do tend to forget their manners sometimes! It's indefensible but most of them do it. Any list of the type you suggest would soon become very long...

Cristina has hit the nail on the head when she says that tests aren't usually the way forward, especially when you're first setting up. They're good experience, I suppose, but I can't really find anything else polite to say about doing test translations! You're certainly not the only one in this position - in my experience most agencies never get back to you unless they liked your work enough to put you on their books. And even then it might take a few months before you hear anything.

And for what it's worth, direct clients can also behave this way too...

Perhaps the way forward here is to prepare a couple of sample translations of your own which you can mail out with your CV? Then people won't (in theory!) need to ask for a test translation.

Hope this is of some use to you.

All the best

posted 26 November 2000 12:23            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mercury:
I am starting out in translation, and have done a few tests for agencies.
<<snip>>
there has been no acknowledgement of any kind.

---

We have "payment practices", "TCR" and other forums... why not a "testing practices" group?

Just brainstorming... personally I doubt this would be feasible.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cristina:
Maybe, just maybe, you need to be more selective who you do tests for. I don't do tests unless I am paid.

---

Do a couple of paragraphs really "test" anything? IMHO, they're a mere formality that wastes time from both sides, agency and translator.

A real job (perhaps at a lower rate to allow budget space for extra proofreading) is a great testing policy and to work for such agencies should be the long term goal of any translator.

A policy, however, almost impossible to implement by someone who is "starting in translation" like Mercury. Unfortunately, I think Mercury will have to cope with the frustration for a while... but keep in mind your paid tests long term objective.

Regards.

g.

posted 27 November 2000 12:14            

quote:

---

Originally posted by gbasilio:
Do a couple of paragraphs really "test" anything? IMHO, they're a mere formality that wastes time from both sides, agency and translator.

---

hi there, g.

I didn't dare put it as bluntly as that, but that is my secret opinion too

I was asked to check some translators tests the other day and they were only good to exclude some people since the subject was very specialised...

quote:

---

A real job (perhaps at a lower rate to allow budget space for extra proofreading) is a great testing policy and to work for such agencies should be the long term goal of any translator.

---

I couldn't agree more, but that is hard to find. Even I, being a freelance translator who subcontracts work, haven't really used that method -because my jobs are all rush jobs.

I read other things those translators had done, read their CVs (sometimes enough not to consider them) and made some mistakes. Eventually, two and a half years later, I have two (TWO) translators in my areas and language pair I trust implicitly and to whom I can give work without losing sleep.

quote:

---

A policy, however, almost impossible to implement by someone who is "starting in translation" like Mercury. Unfortunately, I think Mercury will have to cope with the frustration for a while... but keep in mind your paid tests long term objective.

---

It takes a lot of perserverance, but it happens...and after that, I guess it is word of mouth. Clients reccomend you, you start being known for being good and reliable.

This is my experience but also something I discussed with other translators. I am not so sure Mercury needs to do tests, they are not the only way to chase clients.

Then again, when I started there were no resources such as this forum or Alex's book. I wish I had read it when I first started - I made no big mistakes, but it would have saved me a lot of heart ache and doubt at the beginning.

Hey, it is great seeing the forums start to buzz

------------------
Take care

mailto:cristina.mendia@virgin.net

posted 27 November 2000 12:21            

quote:

---

Originally posted by gbasilio:
We have "payment practices", "TCR" and other forums... why not a "testing practices" group?

---

Hey, the mind boggles at that idea...have you thought of all the language pairs and the checking? Or are you thinking of something I am missing?

It is great that people want to do things, but -at least for me -time is the problem.

I would like to hear more about your idea, unless it was a passing thought

------------------
Take care

posted 27 November 2000 12:56            

quote:

---

Originally posted by gbasilio:
Do a couple of paragraphs really "test" anything? IMHO, they're a mere formality that wastes time from both sides, agency and translator.

---

Not always. I remember once doing a test for a company that had a huge list of style issues, such as how to express currencies and how to approach names of official bodies. The test was as much of my ability to follow instructions as a test of how good a translator I am! If a translator ignores instructions, it can really wreck a deadline, so it is important to check that people can follow instructions. And this is something which you can't tell from the samples people provide with their CVs.

quote:

---

And this is what Cristina said:
Bit by bit, small jobs will start to appear, then bigger ones and if you are good and do things right in terms of marketing, one day you wake up and are at the top of the profession...

---

Good point. Here's one thing which I've heard of. Why not offer to do the first small job free of charge? That way, if the client doesn't like it they can pay someone else to do it. If they do like it, you get labelled "helpful", which isn't quite a guarantee of future work, but it's the next best thing! Of course, if they're in a big hurry it won't work, but you could offer anyway. They might give the work to someone else instead but let you do the freebie. And it's a foot in the door.

quote:

---

It takes a lot of perserverance, but it happens...and after that, I guess it is word of mouth. Clients reccomend you, you start being known for being good and reliable. <snip!> I am not so sure Mercury needs to do tests, they are not the only way to chase clients.

---

Exactly. Once your work becomes self-generating you're away. The hard bit is getting to that point! But as well as being known for being a good translator, you also need to get yourself a reputation as:

• helpful (making sure they know you're setting aside other work to fit in their small but important job)
  
• accommodating (negotiate prices in their favour sometimes if you have to!)
  
• friendly
  
• reliable
  

It's pointless being a good translator if you can't be trusted with deadlines, for example. People won't use you anyway. So if you can be all of these things - i.e. make life as easy for your clients as possible - you'll be making some good contacts and they will come back to you! Of course, you have to be a good translator as well...

All the best

------------------
Apollo

apollo@translatortips.net

posted 19 January 2001 00:35            

A good job brings 10 other jobs, and a bad one... brings the competition in!

That's my personal experience!

Kind regards to everybody

Alessandro

posted 19 January 2001 10:55            

------------------

posted 28 November 2001 10:44            

On this thread you suggest offering to do a 'small job' free. This sounds like an excellent idea and so I'd like to try it out... but I'd like to give the prospective client an idea of how big I think a 'small job' is....

... so, how big is a small job?

(Somehow, I always seem to be asking 'how long is a piece of string )

Regards

posted 09 December 2001 12:36            

Apologies for the lateness of this reply, I've been sunning myself on a beach in the Caribbean....

quote:

---

On this thread you suggest offering to do a 'small job' free. This sounds like an excellent idea and so I'd like to try it out... but I'd like to give the prospective client an idea of how big I think a 'small job' is....

---

Depends how busy you are. I reckon a minimum charge job (less than about 300 words) is fairly reasonable, but for more interesting clients (i.e. the ones that seem to be potential regulars or are offering big jobs) it's always good to be flexible. Certainly I reckon up to about 500 words free of charge is enough unless you really don't have much paid work on your desk. It gives the client a good chance to see what your work is like without forcing you to slave for hours with no cash at the end of it.

Some clients do try to get up to 2000 words free "as a test", but I tend to be deeply suspicious of these unless the 2000 words are snippets from a variety of texts in different specialist fields. And even then I don't tend to do these because time, as they say, is money.

So I suppose the answer is - as small as you can get away with.

Some translators translate a test piece of their choice and send this to all prospective clients along with their CV, but this, I find, is less effective as not all clients will know your languages, and there's an element of suspicion in this kind of case as the immaculate 200 words may have been slaved over for 6 weeks to make it perfect...

In my view, a more effective way of going about this would be to offer a handful of potentially very interesting clients a free minimum charge translation - make it clear that this is a goodwill gesture of your part so that they can see you're confident in your abilities to produce excellent translations.

Another cunning plan involves telling clients you're offering a percentage of your income to a charity for a month - this won't work with all clients, because some couldn't care less. But it makes you look like a nice person to work with, and you'll get some money for the work you do - along with some new clients, with any luck. Then at the end of the month, thank all the clients who placed work with you by sending them a nice fax or e-mail telling them how much money the charity received. If you have a letter from the charity as well, so much the better.

Hope all this helps!

All the best

------------------

apollo@translatortips.net

posted 11 December 2001 10:19            

Every week an agency can receive hundreds of applications/CVs from translators/editors/proofreaders claiming to be excellent at what they do. Therefore, they have to be tested whether they can actually deliver what they claim they can do. The fact that you have done the test though, does not necessarily mean that you get the job because:
a) your translation might not be up to the agency's standards and therefore you will be turned down
b) you are included in the database as a backup translator for emergencies
c) you are too expensive to be used as a first choice

Even if most translators out there believe that a piece of 500 words is not representative of their work (and therefore what will it ever prove?), it still amazes me to see tests delivered with spelling or punctuation mistakes. If you haven't done the effort of running a spell check for such a small piece of work, what guarantees that when you receive a piece of 10,000w under a tight deadline, you'll do a better job?

Regarding the suggestion of paying a small fee per test: would anyone out there ask to get paid to attend a job interview? The fact that the translator has send the CV and the test equals to a job application and is treated as such.

Agencies have much more to lose from a bad translator than the other way round. They can lose major international clients, pay thousands of pounds for reprints, or be legally liable. The translator who has generated the errors, though, will not.

Translators have forums exchanging their experience on bad payers and bad practices. For an agency, hiring a supplier, even with the test, is always a gamble. I have yet to see a forum mentioning bad practices from translators (and believe me I have seen a few).

I think at the end of day, tests are essential to the agency. It is up to the translator to choose if they want to go ahead and work for a specific company or not.

posted 11 December 2001 11:29            

quote:

---

Every week an agency can receive hundreds of applications/CVs from translators/editors/proofreaders claiming to be excellent at what they do. Therefore, they have to be tested whether they can actually deliver what they claim they can do.

---

Yes, I agree - but when I ran an agency, simply testing all the translators, etc. whose CVs looked halfway decent would have been a full-time job in itself. (CVs can tell you a lot - someone who's got lots of well established clients and has had them for years isn't likely to be too awful...) And what would it prove? I can't speak Arabic, or Yoruba, and to check these I would have had to pay someone to do so for me. And sometimes time is a major factor - if a client wants his 2000 words in some unusual language by the end of the day, there's simply no time to mess around checking the quality of work of an untried translator, you just have to get it done.

quote:

---

The fact that you have done the test though, does not necessarily mean that you get the job

---

Absolutely. Or it may be because you are not being tested for a specific job, but for a general database entry.

quote:

---

it still amazes me to see tests delivered with spelling or punctuation mistakes.

---

Quite right too! As they say, this sorts the wheat from the chaff...

quote:

---

Regarding the suggestion of paying a small fee per test: would anyone out there ask to get paid to attend a job interview?

---

You'd be surprised... I was asked more than once to pay travelling and accommodation expenses. Travelling OK, but accommodation for people coming 50 miles??

quote:

---

Agencies have much more to lose from a bad translator than the other way round. They can lose major international clients, pay thousands of pounds for reprints, or be legally liable. The translator who has generated the errors, though, will not.

---

You're right. But all translators worth their salt carry professional indemnity insurance, so what's to stop agencies suing any translators who make errors costing thousands? Passing on the "cost of errors" to translators in the form of fee reductions is commonplace.

quote:

---

For an agency, hiring a supplier, even with the test, is always a gamble. I have yet to see a forum mentioning bad practices from translators (and believe me I have seen a few).

---

Me too! But translation is, as they say, a small pond. A poor translator will generally fade away as word gets around about the lack of quality of his/her work. And believe me, you do get to hear about the really bad ones!

quote:

---

I think at the end of day, tests are essential to the agency. It is up to the translator to choose if they want to go ahead and work for a specific company or not.

---

I would agree with you here if it weren't for the two vital factors of time and money. Testing costs time, which is money. And as I said above, sometimes checking the tests will directly cost money too. Small agencies (i.e. most of them) simply can't afford that kind of investment. There are much more efficient ways of checking out established translators. (And let's be honest here - most agencies won't use non-established translators if they can help it.) You can call any trade body they belong to. You can call colleagues in the industry. You can even call other translators with whom you have a good relationship and ask them what they think. A 5-minute phone call is infinitely preferable to the amount of time it takes to test a translator.

Of course, if a client asks for test pieces to decide on a preferred translator for a specific job, that's another matter entirely...

quote:

---

However, coming from a country where translators are more than being exploited, one of my tutors advised me to "go ahead with the test but only do half of it, saying that what I have delivered represents the quality of my work". That way, I can make sure that my test is not a real piece of work, and that the agency has not used the test as an excuse to dodge fees.

---

I hear this kind of thing time and time again, but I have yet to meet an agency that can be bothered to get people to translate a "test piece" for which it's actually getting paid! It's more trouble than it's worth, believe me. The only people who have time to do fast-turnaround free tests are inexperienced translators whose work takes an age to correct in many cases. It's far easier and quicker just to give the text to an established translator and pay for it!

As regards the issue of only doing half a test - well, I'm afraid if any translator did this it would imply to me that they'd cause problems later on. Some translators are excellent but they don't get as much work as they could because they're pains in the neck to work with. And anyone sending me half a test so that I couldn't rip them off would come firmly under that category to my mind. First impressions count! Agency staff really don't like working with translators who are hard work, they prefer the nice ones who are friendly and helpful.

The most effective way to avoid being ripped off is just not to do time-limited tests. If a client says to you, here's a test and can I have it by Tuesday please, say no! Say they can have it as soon as you have a moment in your busy schedule to do it (but obviously, do it within a reasonable time!). If they insist, they may well be trying to place a real job and pretending it's a test. That way, you've come across as friendly and professional, but you don't give the impression you'll cause them trouble. And they'll appreciate your honesty.

Test pieces, at the end of the day, only tell you how good or bad a translator someone is. There's a lot more information you need to know before deciding to work with someone. That's why I suggested the free minimum charge thing, or the charity idea. If you're not very good, the agency loses nothing but its time. If you're good, the agency gets its free or cheap test, and either way you come out of it labelled a good guy, which could lead to work for you in the future.

------------------

apollo@translatortips.net

posted 12 December 2001 18:38            

It seems to me that a huge deal is made about test translations. Is it really such a big deal? If you're (I am using "you" in the general sense here, not referring to anyone specific!) not getting much work, you have the time to do them, so consider them translation practice. If you never get a response, I think there are three possible explanations: either your rates are too high (scout around on the Web to compare), you don't match the required profile of the agencies to which you are applying (apply to different places or beef up your qualifications), or quite frankly, you may have produced a bad translation (see if you can get someone to look it over and point out weaknesses that you can improve on).

To me, test translations are marketing time well spent, especially if you land a direct customer. I try to limit them to around 200 words or so, but on occasion have done a slightly longer one. It seems to me that if people followed the advice given in this thread - only do short tests, no timed ones, make sure they're spellchecked, etc. - the process should be above-board, and you have a chance to make sure you stand out from the crowd. I hope I don't offend with this statement, but it is based on experience: I have also been in the position of weeding out a large stack of translators' resumes sent in response to an ad, and I can tell you it is not that hard - most of them were specialized in the wrong field, had the wrong language combination, or were full of typos. That leaves a very short stack of good prospects - sad but true in my experience (and that of others I have talked to).

I'd also like to mention a couple of advantages of these things for translators. Firstly, if you do confidential work for companies, you can't send samples of previous work anyway, so a test is a good way to prove your abilities. It also gives you a representative glimpse of the type of work you may be asked to do by the company and of their procedures/methods of dealing with translators.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents,
Daina

posted 14 December 2001 13:00            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Apollo:
Hi Slug,

Apologies for the lateness of this reply, I've been sunning myself on a beach in the Caribbean....

---

Well it's sunny here too in exotic Hessen... the only problem is that it's -7°C...

Thanks for all those suggestions!

regards

slug

posted 14 December 2001 13:09            

quote:

---

Originally posted by troula:
Translators have forums exchanging their experience on bad payers and bad practices. For an agency, hiring a supplier, even with the test, is always a gamble. I have yet to see a forum mentioning bad practices from translators (and believe me I have seen a few).

---

Hello troula

Would you mind elaborating on the bad practices you have seen? It would be helpful to have a few DON'TS (although I daresay some of it is common sense and good manners), so as to know what kinds of things drive agencies and therefore to avoid doing them... Perhaps we should start a new thread though... "Ten ways for translators to really drive agencies up the wall" or something.

Let's have the agencies' point of view .

regards

posted 14 December 2001 15:47            

Let's see now, here are a few from my days as a project manager...

1. Translators who try to steal clients.

2. Translators looking for work who phone late on a Friday or early on a Monday when the office is in chaos.

3. Translators looking for work who phone at 8 on a Friday night and then won't go away when you tell them politely that the office is closed ("oh, but I just wanted to see if you need any French translators....").

4. Translators who ask millions of silly questions on even the simplest of jobs "because they don't want to make a mistake".

5. Translators who ask you a question - then another 2 hours later - then another later - etc. (Put them all in a list!!)

6. Rude translators - especially when you're ringing to offer them work (what's wrong with "no thank you, I'm a little busy right now"?!).

7. People who phone wanting to be translators and yet don't have any idea of what the job entails. Some of them don't even speak any languages and want to know which ones would be good to learn from a commercial point of view! Oh, if only it were that easy...

8. Translators who tell you 30 minutes before a deadline that they're in trouble and they won't be able to finish in time.

9. Translators who tell you 30 minutes before a deadline that you won't get the text for another 2 days - at least.

10. Translators who, on receiving a telling-off for items 8 and 9, say "well it'll take as long as it takes". Don't take the work if you can't meet the deadline!

11. Translators who don't care if work is late. End clients get really mad about this - and you can see why really. Imagine paying for 3 typesetters for a day when no translation appears for them to work on...

12. Translators who can't be bothered to spell check their work or delete double spaces.

13. Translators who format work using the tab key and spacebar.

14. Translators who expect you to do their research for them.

15. Translators who submit invoices with absolutely no information on them to identify the job(s) in question.

16. Translators who phone with queries and expect you to have their job on your desk right at the time they call. Oh, and to know exactly what they're talking about, which page, etc.

17. Interpreters who show up late!

18. ...and who then hand their business cards around to the client, the client's client, the secretary with the aim of bypassing the agency and getting more money next time.

19. Translators who blatantly disregard specific client instructions "because I've always done it this way and I'm not going to change now".

20. Translators who want paying for every last little minute that they spend on a job. Yes, you should get paid for all the time you spend doing something, but for a good, repeat client, do you really have to charge a minimum charge for amending one sentence in a previous translation you did? Don't be mean!

21. Translators who phone up every day after you've received their CV, asking why they haven't had any work from you yet.

Phew! Told you ten wasn't enough. And there's bound to be more - these are the ones off the top of my head.

You see, there are loads of things which agencies really don't like. Interestingly, the freelancers who've worked for agencies themselves don't tend to be guilty of any of the above (and let's face it, most professional translators don't do these either!). And no one person does all of these things, as far as I'm aware.

But one thing they all seem to have in common is thoughtlessness. Most of the above involve no malice on the translator's part, it's purely down to "didn't think". You have to take the wider view, consider what consequences your actions will have for the agency, the agency's client, the client's client...

When I have a minute, I'll try and come up with the things they do like - I'm sure it'll be at least as long as this list!

I think I need a lie-down now.

------------------

posted 14 December 2001 17:05            

Just last week, we had a Swedish translation (as you know!) and the lady who delivered it was Swedish. Of course all her friends told her she should be a translator [she had no higher education or experience] and her English is perfect - which it was. But what about her Swedish, which she would only be translating into?? Of course that is 'perfect' too. Yes, I am sure in your spoken word you are fantastic but can you really write your own mother tongue in such a coherent and concise way that your text would never be suspected as a translation? Do you really have the technical and commercial language/experience to adequately convey the nuances of the English language texts that we are asked to translate? Anyway, I won't go into how the conversation went from there. I lucky have a sheet prepared for such occasions detailing 'the facts', so tend to hand that over with a smile to anyone interested !

posted 29 January 2002 22:56            

Actually.... When I interviewed for a teaching job in the physics department of a college, they followed the standard US practice for such interviews: The college directly paid (or reimbursed me if necessary) for ALL expenses involved (airplane roundtrip ticket, lodging, meals). So you could say that at least I earned an amount equivalent to two days worth of meals! (Not that I had much time to eat, with all those people asking me questions all the time...) Oh, yes. I got the job.

But as far as test translations are concerned, my problem with them today is simply that I can't afford to spend so much time on unpaid work. My subject areas (physics, chemistry, pharmaceutical, biotech) typically require considerable research well beyond the dictionaries because even a highly trained chemist and physicist like myself only has the background to learn more as needed -- nobody can possibly know everything, even about their own research specialties, and technical texts typically pack considerable detail into a small space. As a result, short texts are generally unprofitable even if I impose a minimum fee as high as US$100. Excerpts (such as are used in test translations) can be especially labor-intensive (as well as ambiguous, requiring more notes to the editor) since there are fewer clues within the text and no repetition of ideas. Just a few sentences can take quite a long time. In a longer assignment, research done on those few sentences (reading in the field of the translation) speeds up the rest of the text and so the job becomes profitable. But if those few sentences are the whole text....

So I generally tell agencies that I don't have the time for unpaid tests (except for something like a book assignment, where the sample is the last hurdle before signing the contract), and offer instead to send my sample translation package: one page source/one page target for my language pairs, taken from real scientific texts to illustrate my various subject areas. If that isn't enough, I may offer a discount on the first job (e.g., US$30 discount for the first job of 1000 words or more) to help offset extra evaluation costs. In my promotional letter, I also include a detailed list of some representative projects (word counts, agency name, time frame, subject matter and types of docs) along with a list of references ("referees" to you folks in the UK) including an indication of what kind of work I've done for them.

I can sympathize with the agency's difficulty in evaluating a potential translator just based on the CV and the "I'm so wonderful" cover letter. When I was interviewing for the teaching job, the college did have me give a talk on my doctoral research for the faculty and students in the department, so they could tell whether or not I could explain physics and chemistry (and a bit of biology) without tripping completely over my own tongue. I wasn't paid anything for that. But I just recycled the same talk I had given on my research before. And if I had not been hired so quickly, I would have gone on other such interviews at other schools and recycled the talk again.

That's really what the sample translation package is about -- I'm able to recycle work already done, so my time investment is minimal for each new agency needing some indication of my abilities. Probably an agency is better off investigating a translator's references more closely (even a test translation could be secretly subcontracted, after all...) or just trying out a new translator on a short job with careful editing specifically for evaluation purposes.

Test translations are probably most appropriate for people just starting in the business, since they are more likely to have free time in their schedules and need the practice! They also may lack references and project lists. But it probably is not a very reliable way to get experienced translators on the roster of an agency, because of the time problem.

Peace, Cathy Flick cathyf@infocom.com
Ph.D. Chemical Physics/M.A. Physics/B.S. Chemistry
Scientific Translator since 1978
Russian/French/German/Spanish/Italian into US English