Sarah's Archives

an archive of content from ≈ 2005 - 2015, relating to international business, translation, freelancing, and working online.

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Building your client list: words of advice

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There’s an interesting article in today’s FT about Transperfect, the biggest privately owned translation company in the US and the third biggest in the sector. I have a friend who worked for them inhouse, and know several others who’ve worked for them freelance.

I think Transperfect is unusual in that it’s such a big player in a sector which tends to be dominated by smaller entities. I love hearing how translation companies were started, and especially about the backgrounds of the founders. This article does not disappoint and is well worth a read.

Now, if I were a newcomer to the profession, I’d see this article as a great excuse to contact the company and perhaps see whether they were interested in adding me to their list of suppliers. However, as a slighty more established translator with a hefty 4 years (or so!) of experience under my belt, I’m a bit more cautious and always follow these words of advice before signing up with a new work provider:

ALWAYS check a potential client out with fellow translators BEFORE taking on a job with them (this includes test translations).

You can do this via personal contacts or even better, through the well established payment practice groups that are out there. These usually require you to sign up for membership, but are well worth the hassle. Chances are someone will have worked for them before. If they haven’t, take the view that “no news is good news”and proceed with caution – assuming you’re not ignoring any glaringly obvious warning signs, of course.

So why is this necessary? Ask yourself if you can afford NOT to be paid for this job and it becomes clear. I’ve spoken before about how it can be tempting to take every job that comes your way, and this is yet another reason to be choosy. Industry payment terms already leave little room for maneouvre and are stacked against the freelancer. Payment in 30 days net is pretty standard, and means you may not get paid for up to 2 months following the date you invoice for your work. Even the slightest delay or hiccup can severely affect your cash flow, especially in the early days… Trust me, there are plenty of more enjoyable ways to get translation experience.

Best blogs round-up for translators

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Here are a couple of blogs I’m keeping an eye on at the moment, of specific interest to translators:

Blogamundo: snippets of info on all aspects of language on the web, as well as translation, localisation, machine translation, accessibility, etc. Something here for everyone.

Get Direct Clients: no guarantees it will do exactly what it says on the tin, but this site still coontains a host of useful posts aimed at translators starting out in the freelance field.

Language Log: intelligent, well thought out discussions on a range of topical language matters. Frequent posts by a team of academics specialising in linguistics. A good starting point for anybody with a love of languages, translation, etc.

International Telecommuting Translator: posts on various aspects of setting up and running a translation business. A bit of a mixed bag in that it contains advice aimed at project managers and potential buyers of translation, as well as anyone considering a career in translation, either freelance or inhouse.

ICE: an international calendar of events for the translation industry. OK, not a blog exactly but you can subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date with what’s happening.

It’s amazing how much is out there – I use Technorati to keep an eye out for new ones.

10 questions on translation as a career – Part 2 of 2

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Continued from this post…

6. What do you find challenging about your job?

Keeping to a relatively “normal” routine. I love owning my own business and working from home, but it can be very, very hard to just switch off. I joke about lolling around in my pjs and watching daytime TV, but the reality is that I work very hard, and much longer hours than most people I know. Plus, I’m naturally a night owl and could easily work all night, every night, but then I have trouble sleeping during the day. So I have to be strict with myself and try to keep a relatively “normal” work routine, or else I’d find myself getting very isolated from the rest of the world!


7. Have there ever been times you wish you¹d picked a more “conventional” job? Or not a freelance one?

Yes! Usually when I have a lot of non-work things to do but I’m also busy with my actual “paying” work. I sometimes think, “If I worked for someone else, I could easily do my photocopying/printing, book my holiday, surf the internet, email my friends etc. on the sly, and no one would be the wiser!”. But when I’m my own boss and I get paid for the work I produce instead of the number of hours I’m sat at my desk, I see the direct effects of these kinds of non-work tasks on my bottom line and it hurts.

It’s also frustrating when friends and family think that just because I work at home, I don’t really work, and expect me to be constantly available to do these kinds of tasks!

And my office Christmas party is usually pretty dull 🙂


8. What’s the best advice you’ ve ever been given?

Do your best, then don’t worry about it – you can’t do any more than that. My mom always used to say that to me when I was fretting over something as a child!


9. Is there anything you’ve learned during your career that you’d want to share with others?

Practical work experience is the best way to figure out what you want do and do not want in a job, try and get lots of it. If you want to do something badly enough, then go for it, no matter how far out of your reach it seems. Take advice from those who’ve gone before you, but make your own mind up – there will always be naysayers and critics. Formal education is not the only way into most careers, but it often helps. Finally, never worry about not being able to find the right job, I guarantee it’s out there somewhere – but you need to know what you’re looking for before you can find it!


10. Plans for the future/ultimate goals?

I’d like to run my own language services business in the future, but on my terms – small enough to still be flexible but big enough to allow me to try my hand at managing other people.

What are you worth? Don't be a monkey.

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First published in March 2007

I’ve spoken before about how important it is to specialise if you really want to make your living as a freelance translator. But I want to do more than just make a living, I also want longevity in my career, so I’ve also tried to heed Chris Durban’s advice when she said “Shifting your focus to a sector that is bound to discover Internet outsourcing any day now is a short-term, short-sighted fix”. Very good point – I don’t want to be one of those translators who is always looking over their shoulder, afraid of being replaced by a machine or another professional working in a country where the cost of living is lower than the UK (that would be most countries, then).

You’ll notice I place a lot of store in Chris’s advice – I think she should be compulsory reading for all newbies. I first heard her speak, again in my formative years, about how to set yourself up as a freelance translator and she really impressed me. She was probably the only translator that I heard say during that time that there was no shortage of translation work, but you had to position yourself for it. She has repeatedly advocated pitching yourself at the higher end of the market.

This approach has definitely paid off for me. Not only have I also discovered to my delight that there is no shortage of work around, I’ve also been well rewarded for the work that I’ve done and have continued to learn and develop (because as you know, for a translator, the learning never stops). But I’m surprised at how many translators don’t seem to appreciate that they don’t do themselves any favours by taking on poorly paid work… I’d get more upset about it only it leaves so much more work for me 🙂

So I’ve learnt that specialising doesn’t only refer to the sector you chose to work in, but also the kind of clients you decide to work with. It’s pretty standard advice to turn down work if it’s not in your area of expertise, but just because you can do a job does not automatically mean you should take it on. Here are a couple of hard-learnt lessons I’ve faced so far:

1. Don’t say yes to everything that comes your way. It may well seem counter-intuitive (especially when you’re starting up and desperate for work) but if the price is not right or you feel the work is bringing you into an area you don’t want to be in, then sometimes the best thing you can do is to turn it down. What happens if you accept the job, then the job of your dreams comes in tomorrow? Will you be able to give it the attention it deserves? Sometimes, no work really is better than crappy work.

2. Don’t worry about over-pricing your services. Clients won’t think less of you if you lower your rates, but it’s much, much harder to increase your rates after you realise they’re too low, especially when you’re only starting out. Premium rates will attract premium buyers (that the standard of your work is also premium goes without saying, of course). Peanuts, on the other hand, will only attract monkeys 🙂

3. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that after a few low paid jobs your client will suddenly see the light and start offering you better paid ones. In fact, the opposite usually occurs – your clients will see you either as someone naïve who doesn’t know the value of their work, or quite simply cheap. Not the personal brand any of us really want, now is it?

4. Work for free rather than for cheap. If you really are struggling to find work and your quiet days are starting to echo unbareably, don’t give in to the lowly paid translation jobs. Take on some pro bono work instead. Even if it means taking a part-time job in another field to tide you over financially, it will pay dividends professionally and help further build your profile in the industry.

Not only is the work very satisfying, I’ve found geniune pro bono clients are often more flexible with their deadlines so I can really take the time to hone my translation skills (and by genuine I mean not-for-profit organisations, not just unscrupulous agencies or cheap-scate companies looking for a free translation). These kind of work providers can also be generous to a fault in offering feedback and you can usually swing a name check on their website or in the document you’ve done for them too. Try here for an organisation I’ve worked with before and can highly recommend. If you’re interested in specialising in localisation, you could always check out SourceForge.net, an open-source software development which hosts more than 100,000 programs, many of which need localising (this work is free rather than pro bono, of course). Either way, you’ll gain a lot more than if you’d taken on work from some shark offering below-industry rates.

I think it helped that I’d had a very well paid corporate job before I decided to go freelance as a translator. Even though this job was not in translation, I saw just how much companies were prepared to pay for excellent service. It forced me to put a price on my time as I didn’t see the point in chucking in a well paid job to go work for peanuts, regardless of how much more satisfying it might be. So I decided early on that this was the approach that I was going to take. I knew that it would be hard, and that it would take balls of steel, but I was determined not to take on jobs that would have me earning below a certain hourly rate. So put a price on your time, and stick to it – it will pay off.

Escape from Cubicle Nation podcast

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There’s a couple of great podcasts I subscribe to – I may not have a long commute to work (!) but there are plenty of other times in my days when I can squeeze in a bit of easy listening 🙂 Here’s one I’m especially enjoying at the moment, it’s from Escape from Cubicle Nation‘s Pamela Slim.

Pamela’s podcasts are usually under 10 minutes long (a few are much longer) and are broadcast every 2 weeks. They address different topics related to the challenges of breaking out of the safe mould of regular employment to work for yourself. Her podcasts are always informative and packed with practical advice in the form of interviews, cases studies, and other useful resources. Worth a listen if you’re already self employed and in need of a bit of inspiration, or if you’re employed and want to take practical steps towards making your dream of self-employment a reality.

10 questions on translation as a career – Part 1 of 2

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I was interviewed for a magazine yesterday and thought it might be interesting to post an edited version of some of my responses (link to follow when published). The target audience is teenagers/young people considering careers in different areas, which I think (hope?!) explains why I come across as being some kind of wise old owl who has already “made it” to the pinnacle of my profession 🙂 (I’m on my way, certainly, but not quite there yet 😉 ) It gives a bit more of a glimpse into how I got into translation and the challenges of being a freelancer, so links in nicely to the issues discussed here.

I answer the following:

  1. How did you get into the job you’re doing? (training, job experience etc)
  2. What led you to it/what excited you about this profession?
  3. Tell me about your day to day work.
  4. What’s the best things about your job?
  5. What’s your daily motivation?
  6. What do you find challenging about your job?
  7. Have there ever been times you wish you¹d picked a more “conventional” job? Or not a freelance one?
  8. What’s the best advice you’ ve ever been given?
  9. Is there anything you’ve learned during your career that you’d want to share with others?
  10. Plans for the future/ultimate goals?

It was a very interesting exercise for me. It made me take a step back and think about what I do day to day, and measure it up against what I thought I would be doing when I set out to go freelance almost 5 years ago. I think there are two kinds of people who might benefit from thinking about how they might answer these questions – those considering making a career out of freelance translation, and those who have been at it for a while but are getting dangerously close to forgetting why they ever thought it would be a good idea! As a freelance translator, you really do have a lot of control over the work you do and the way you spend your working day, sothere’s really no excuse for poor job satisfaction!

PS – I’ve broken the interview down into 2 posts to make it a bit more user friendly and would appreciate hearing what you think – does that make it easier to read??

1. How did you get into the job you’re doing? (training, job experience etc).

I did a 4 year BA in languages and was lucky enough to spend almost 3 full years of that time living and working in each of France, Germany and Spain, so I had already had some great international experience (and adventures!) by the time I’d graduated. I travelled and worked in a couple of different jobs for a few years after that, but it was an MA in translation that really set me up for becoming a fully-fledged freelance translator. It was excellent, very hands-on with practical work placements modules, and also gave me access to practicing translators already working in the industry. These contacts proved invaluable when it came to setting out on my own.

They say the ideal career path for a translator is to get a degree in something completely unrelated to languages, say medicine or engineering, work for 15 years in this area while becoming fluent in another language, then marry someone who speaks your second language and go live and work in that country for another 10 years or so. Finally, you need to move back to the country of your source language… and you are you are ready to become a freelance translator!

Needless to say I didn’t follow this path (I’m didn’t have the patience… or the non-English speaking boyfriend!). It’s true that many translators tend to get into it via a career change in their later years, but it’s certainly not the only way in. Many people start off working as an in-house translator for a few years, but there’s a real shortage of good translators who have the business skills to manage themselves as freelancers. I guess the most important things are a thorough understanding of your target language(s) gained through in-country experience, combined with competence in a field other than languages – after all, languages are only useful if you have something to say.

Also, many people don’t realise this, but professional translators work only into their mother tongue, no matter how fluent they are in their other languages, so your written English has to be top notch too!

2. What led you to it/what excited you about this profession?

Despite doing a first degree in languages, translation wasn’t something I was at all interested in initially. I was more interested in interpreting actually, as I thought it seemed a lot more glamorous (translation is working with the written word, interpreting the spoken word). But I have some friends who worked for big institutions like the UN and the Council of Ministers at the EU, and I could see that it wasn’t for me. I always knew I wanted to work for myself, and so after graduating from my first degree I spent quite a lot of time thinking about how I could have the kind of flexibility and work-life balance that I wanted, while also doing a satisfying job. Once I’d decided on freelance translation, I went about finding the best training course I could, and the rest is history. I suppose I went about it in a very analytical way, but that doesn’t make me any less excited by it!

The fantastic thing about translation is that you really never stop learning. It’s such a diverse profession – you can work with anything from scientific research, to reports on human rights abuses to automotive manuals… and it’s your job to convince the reader of each documents that you are the author, the expert in that particular field and not just someone who speaks a foreign language.

It’s essential to specialise if you want to make a living from translation these days. Sometimes I find myself reading something in French, German or Spanish that I wouldn’t even understand in English, say the details of how an engine part works, or complex information about market shares and stocks for example. So I have to go away and make sure I have a full understanding of it (in English!) before I can even begin to think about translating it. And unlike interpreting, where the spoken words often go in one ear and out the other, your words are there in black and white for everyone to see, so they have to be exactly right – no waffling when you’re not sure of a meaning! Every day there’s a new word, phrase or concept that you have to carefully research and then quickly master, as dictionaries don’t have the answers you need at this level. And as a freelancer you can really steer your career too, and work in the areas that genuinely interest you.

3. Tell me about your day to day work.

It’s such a cliché, but every day really is as different as the job I’m working on. My jobs tend t
o last an average of two weeks, but a reasonably typical working day involves getting up about 8.30am, wandering into my little home office and responding to a few emails while I wait for the kettle to boil. I’ll have a quick breakfast, then return to my email where I’ll invariably get sucked into something for another hour or so. I’m lucky in that I’m always booked up for work about 6 weeks ahead at any time, but it’s important that I keep on top of my admin – chasing overdue payments, keeping my accounts up to date, issuing invoices, paying bills, responding to queries from potential and existing clients, and so on. Plus, the reality is that I never know if the work will stop coming in, so I have to have a contingency plan for if that ever happens.

About 11am I’ll take a break for a couple of hours and go to the gym, take a walk, do some shopping or watch some trashy daytime TV (if I’m feeling really lazy!). Then I’ll work solidly on whatever translation I’m working on until from about 1pm until 7pm, when my husband comes home. I try to have weekends off, but I usually end up spending at least 6 – 7 hours either catching up on my never-ending admin, or attending training events. It’s really important that I stay up-to-date with developments in the industry and training tends to be organised at weekends to prevent us losing out on earnings.

4. What’s the best things about your job?

Being able to do my shopping and go to the gym when it’s nice and quiet, no Saturday or 5.30pm queues for me! I also love that I never clock watch. My days fly by so fast but if I’m not feeling productive, I don’t have to try and look busy for the benefit of my boss. I can go out and do something else, I know what my deadlines are and I’ll get the work done when I need to.


I also love the mix of pure translation work and the completely different job of running a business. I get to do a little bit of everything – admin, sales, accounting, IT and so on (not forgetting office cleaning!)

5. What’s your daily motivation?

Being able to pay my bills without having to work hours that suit somebody else! I love translation, but let’s just say I wouldn’t hesitate to throw it all in and travel the world if I won the lotto 🙂

Tax just got a whole lot more taxing…

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It looks like the translation industry will feel the effects of Gordon Brown’s so-called “neutral budget“. As an sector largely made up of small companies and sole traders – the biggest losers in last week’s budget – the effects of a rise in the rate of corporation tax from 19% to 22% will be sorely felt. (More comment here, here and here if you’re interested in the details). And where is this money going? Supporting entrepreuneurship in other ways, perhaps? Advancing the cause of the knowledge economy?? Of course not, silly, it will help fund the reduced tax burden on big businesses!! (but that discussion I’ll save for another blog 🙂 )

So what does this mean for the self-employed? The Chancellor has claimed that any hike in tax rates have been balanced out by generous tax credits, but the fact remains that not only are these credits extremely difficult to apply for, but they don’t actually apply to the majority of small businesses anyway. (And certainly not to the average translator whose operating tools mainly consist of a PC and broadband connection).

What annoys me most about this kind of smoke and mirrors approach to taxation is that it really does nothing to help the average sole trader understand their tax position. HMRC (the agency formerly know as Inland Revenue) have tried very hard to convince us that “tax doesn’t have to be taxing”. Anyone who has ever submitted a self assessment form knows this is utter rubbish, of course, but is it too much to ask to be able to complete my self assessment form myself??

I consider myself to be well educated and more than financially literate, yet I’ve been obliged to hire an accountant to submit my tax returns since registering as self employed. Believe me when I say there is nothing especially complex about my financial affairs – I stay on top of my day to day business accounts, keep very careful records and produce mini profit and loss statements every year (ambitious, I know, but I do have a special interest in finance 🙂 ). Despite this, the process of completing my self assessment forms was such a headache that I figured I was better off paying an accountant and putting the time and energy into developing my business. That’s a very difficult decision to make when you’re a newly established translator and not at all sure how you’re going to pay your bills, but I really felt stuck.

So if you are considering going freelance, before registering with HMRC, invest serious time and energy into planning how you will manage your tax situation. Do you have the option to register in another country for tax purposes? (we are a globe trotting bunch, after all) Is self-employment really something you are ready to commit to? Registering is easy once you decide to do it, but you can be sure that de-registering will be a lot harder should you change your mind. Weigh it all up – it may well save you a lot of time, grief and money down the track.

PS Just in case it’s not too late to claw back some of your hard-earned cash, here‘s some pretty generic advice from The Times on how to beat the budget.

Your CV says a thousand words

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While I’ve not yet had the good fortune of being involved in recruiting translators, I’ve made a point of examining as many translator CVs as I possibly could over the past 5 years. When I first considered becoming a freelance translator, I spent hours and hours surfing websites of translation companies, going to the About Us pages to glean what information I could about the people running the company. Then I moved on to translation communities such as Translators’ Cafe or ProZ, where I found I could download CVs of literally hundreds of translators.

Now, bear in mind that most freelance translators first contact their clients by email these days, especially when first starting out. Remember too that our clients may not be in a position to assess our language abilities, and you may start to understand the method behind my madness. Quite simply, a CV is to a freelance translator what a headshot is to a model.

So I’d keep the ones I especially liked, making adjustments to the format of my own CV in light of these. I made lists of the areas I thought I might want to move into in the future, and wrote notes to my future self, “Keep the references to XYZ to a minimum!”, or “DO NOT do this unless you want to look like an oddball!”.

I did all this for several reasons – to get an better idea of the routes other translators had taken to get into the profession, to understand how other people sold themselves and to see what I was up against. Mostly though, I did it because I’m quite nosey and I got a bit of a kick out of it 🙂

Several years in and I still occasionally review my CV hall of fame, or go on the hunt for a few more. (Of course I call it a “business profile” now, but it’s much the same thing). But one thing that still surprises me is many translators’ apparent lack of regard for the things that really matter to their clients.

Rowan Manahan, aka The Irish Independant’s Career Doctor, had a very interesting post over at Fortify Your Oasis recently. He reckons that while many people appear to understand the concept of fine-tuning a job application to the needs of the recruiter, very few actually have the EQ (as oppsoed to the IQ) to adjust their behaviour to reflect this understanding. I think this is also applies to freelance translators and the CVs (or business profiles) they send out to potential clients.

Most translators, especially those starting out, will be selling their services to agencies. These agencies tend to be small businesses with a handful of employees. They’re used to getting a lot of CVs by email from translators all over the world, many of whom will be willing to work for rates a lot lower than you can afford. And as Jason Alba puts it, these people “already have a full-time job … where are they going to fit in the time to personally respond to 200+ unsolicited non-matches each day??”

So why make it difficult for them? There are only a few key things things that a translation agency needs to know before they decide to put you on their books. These are as follows (more or less in order of importance):

  1. your full contact details
  2. your mother tongue, including the variation of language if relevant, your working languages and the direction in which you translate. (Your nationality has no bearing on your language skills, and is of no relevance if you are applying for home work as a freelancer!)
  3. your areas of expertise, relevant to the areas the agency works in
  4. any translation-related services you offer e.g. translation, proofreading, editing, voice-overs, transcription
  5. affiliations or memberships of professional associations
  6. your qualifications and the countries in which you gained them (full titles in their original language – no creative translations of degrees. A Maîtrise does not equal a Diplom does not equal a Masters, and translation agencies know this!)
  7. your translation related experience, grouped according to relevant skill set rather than a chronological list
  8. your rates

So do them a favour, and let them know that you know what they’re looking for. They can always get back to you if they’re really that interested in your hobbies, or the exact dates you were employed on that holiday campsite in France.

How I became a translator

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First published in March 2006

I always wanted to work for myself and after sampling the delights of a couple of different industries, I realised that translation would offer me a good way to do this. Although this wasn’t a career I had given much thought to during my primary education, I did have some idea of what was involved as I had covered commercial translation and interpreting as part of my BA in Applied Languages (not to be confused with a degree in modern languages!).

So I spent months reading everything I could about what it meant to be a professional freelance translator and the best way to start up, and decided that enrolling on a course would be the best way for me to build on my experience and further develop the skills required (although I realised, of course, that there are some very successful translators who are not formally qualified in translation).

I quickly realised from my reading that specialisation was the way to go if I truly wanted to make a living as a freelance translator. Based on this, I chose a course that would introduce me to a range of areas which I could then decide to specialise in as I grew more experienced (more about this in another post!). I then made what I now believe to be the best decision of all: I decided to do the 1 year course part time over 2 years. This allowed me to work at building up a small client base, while ensuring I had the time and flexibility to fully benefit from the expertise of the teaching staff. (I was also more than a little aware that it also meant I could make a quick getaway if I decided that the course was not for me, without losing too much time or money…)

I finished the course in 2004, and after working for a management consultancy for a year, I had saved enough money to go freelance full time. The contacts I had made over the previous 3 years proved invaluable, and I’m proud to say I’ll be celebrating 12 months of full-time freelancing in May.