How to Find a Job As a Translator?
Working as a translator requires years of practice and patience but most of all – skills concerning both language and finding a job. The translation sector is a fast-growing field witch offers a lot of opportunities. As a translator, you are a bridge between people and cultures – you enable individuals and companies to communicate with each other. All you have to do is get a job of your dreams and make money on it!
- Sign up for job websites and be active on forums. Web pages like Proz or Translators cafe are filled with intriguing job announcements. They are perfect for freelancers or for beginner translators who need to jumpstart their career. Some of these websites require a fee but many of them are completely free. General rule is, the ones that cost some money are slightly more lucrative in the end. Take advantage of web pages with tests too. Gengo or Verbalizeit assess your translator skills and allow you to land into a pool of professionals that is visible to the clients. If you're fluent in what you're doing and you have already set your resume, use these websites to multiply your income.
- Try to get an internship – it doesn't even have to be paid. Unpaid internships are also valuable in terms of your experience – to be honest, it works that way almost in every profession. The good news is, at the end of your internship your boss may offer you a full-time, well-paid job. Another important thing to have in mind is the high value of an escort interpreting. It is a great opportunity for inexperienced workers which helps soon-to-be interpreters (translators in speech) to learn from the best. Always ask your potential employers about the access to some kind of shadowing program.
- Advertise your services. You have to market yourself! A vast majority of translators works on a contracts as a freelancers. Project here, project there and somehow it goes. In this kind of business advertisement is everything. How else will you find your clients if not by marketing your services everywhere you possibly can? Who know what good will happen to you, even if it's just a part-time contract for a few hours? The great places to start are those with many visitors. Hospitals, police stations, language and government agencies are perfect choices. Take advantage of your special skills – if you're familiar with technical law language, advertise your services in law firms buildings. At the beginning charge competitive prices to attract new clients.
- Find your niche and stick with it. Concentrate on one or two chosen topics which you're familiar with (that means that you should know both the topic matter and the professional language). If you're great in the biological terminology and you're interested in diseases, health and hospital topic, you already have your niche. In such narrow fields translators are able to spot content mistakes more efficiently. The industries which demand language services the most are court and medical interpreting.
- Direct mailing also works! Good translators are always welcome, so it sounds reasonable to write directly to translations agencies. The longer the letter is, the less chance it gets to be actually read. List your personal data and contact details, mention your languages, skills and rates and simply ask for a test translation.
