Today I would like to speak about my own profession – about a translator. It will be useful for many of my colleagues who are just starting their career.
Who is really a translator? This is a person who knows perfectly at least one foreign language, who helps other people to understand this language by giving a written translation of different documents or by translating one’s speech (if you are an interpreter). It’s a person who must know also some customs, culture, traditions of the country where people speak this language. Simply – it’s someone who connects nations. Without him no international affairs would be possible.
But, having all these qualities doesn’t mean that you will become a good professional. Besides, you must have at least some simple marketing skills, in order to find your potential customer and to show yourself as a real professional.What to do if you are just beginning? Simply try to be a freelancer (see more about freelancing). I also started like this. At first try to register at such a big translator portals as ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com. Many potential clients can find you there. You can stop at this point, as lots of freelance translators earn enough to make it a full-time job.
And if want to go on developing your career, you can join some freelance groups, or even establish your own small translation agency (as I did it; you can find it here). But, I must tell you that it’s much harder to do this than to be a freelancer. The decision is yours.
So, let me summarize, what are the main steps, when starting your translator’s career:
1. Build your resume/CV.
2. Register at translation portals.
3. Start sending your resume to different agencies.
4. Give your bid to translation jobs, posted on these websites (there are plenty of them there).
Use these tips and you will start to build your career as a translator right now.
