| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Career change advice needed and appreciated Thread poster: Vlad Mandic
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Philippe Noth 
Switzerland
Local time: 22:33
Member (2015)
German to French
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| Similar background | Jan 20, 2023 |
Hi Vlad,
Vlad Mandic wrote:
That CV is such a bas*ard thing, as I don't know how to structure or modify it so that it at least resembles a translator's CV and not look like a purely IT-related CV.
You can have a look at my CV, which I believe can be downloaded here from my profile page.
My background is similar to yours: been a software engineer for 20+ years before quitting and becoming a freelancer 5 years ago. To put all the chances on my side, I had hired someone on this site to polish my CV.
I will share other tips in a private chat or messages if you’d like to – not everybody here is ready to hear things like "be open to MTPE", "offer as much flexibility as you can, if your personal situation allows it"… I may get flamed for writing that. 🙂 But these are the things that worked for me. Of course, luck is also a parameter.
To give you courage, I can tell you that being an IT geek gives you an advantage over other "newbies", at least that is what I believe. Not in terms of content, but because
- you will less likely be stuck by software/hardware issues and miss deadlines because of them;
- you will understand things like tags, non breaking spaces – I am doing lots of revisions and I am always baffled that so many good translators do not get it that text between < a > tags will appear as an hyperlink;
- you will be able to use various tools and software to your advantage: AutohotKey to automatize your work or insert special characters, Notepad++ for special things (e.g. bookmarking lines longer than N characters), regular expressions for smart search/replace…;
- you will understand instructions that are sometimes complicated, like downloading from FTP servers, making a diff of files/folders…
Philippe
[Edited at 2023-01-20 22:49 GMT]
| | | | Vlad Mandic
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:33
English to Croatian
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you all! | Jan 23, 2023 |
Martin Riordan wrote:
Twelve years later, I get enough work from existing clients and also new ones who find my Proz profile so I no longer try to promote myself. And I have now finished building my new house, totally on earnings from translation, so my outgoings have fallen considerably.
Incredibly uplifting and inspiring! Well done Martin, what a story! Thank you for sharing that with us.
Philippe Noth wrote:
You can have a look at my CV...
Philippe, thank you, this is very encouraging too, and that's so tremendously important to me right now. As you suggest, I will contact you privately to discuss a few things further.
I will definitely look at KudoZ, as several of you have suggested.
BIG thank you to everyone who's engaged here and takes the time to write all these detailed, meaningful and helpful, and above all, encouraging replies, what a wonderful surprise this community is.
Thank you!
[Edited at 2023-01-23 13:22 GMT]
| | | | | You have to consider, too | Jan 23, 2023 |
Vlad Mandic wrote: .. but again, a BIG thank you to everyone who's engaged here and takes the time to write all these detailed, meaningful and helpful, and above all, encouraging replies, what a wonderful surprise this community is. Thank you!
that not everyone coming here seeking advice presents themselves or turns out to be as polite, open to suggestions and thankful as you happen to be.
I wish you good luck und great satisfactionl
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:33
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Philippe Noth wrote:
You can have a look at my CV, which I believe can be downloaded here from my profile page.
Most people advise that you shouldn't make your CV freely available - because unscrupulous agencies may use it to bid for translation contracts etc. without asking your permission.
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| Look at Odoo for long period | Jan 23, 2023 |
Vlad Mandic wrote:
Ideally, I would want to find work that allows me to work from home/remotely. It can be pretty much anything translation-related, full-time, part-time, one-off, on an ad-hoc basis, etc. I am open to volunteering too.
There is an open-source platform Odoo.com for entrepreneurs of all sizes. The software can be used as a free or paid edition. In some countries have to be localised and adapted. Odoo has 7 Million users.
https://www.odoo.com/
There are more than one thousand themed videos on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@Odoo
Volunteers are being translating the website and software.
https://github.com/odoo/odoo/wiki/Translations
Milan
| | | | | Become THE expert in your field | Jan 24, 2023 |
Dear Vlad,
I followed your path too, from IT into translation, even without formal training for that, because there are many more ways to learn a language and get fluent at it than just at school.
Actually, mastering IT or any other technical skill gives you a huge advantage over those who had formal education "just" in languages and in the end "only" know foreign words but might not understand what they are talking about, when it comes to complicated technical t... See more Dear Vlad,
I followed your path too, from IT into translation, even without formal training for that, because there are many more ways to learn a language and get fluent at it than just at school.
Actually, mastering IT or any other technical skill gives you a huge advantage over those who had formal education "just" in languages and in the end "only" know foreign words but might not understand what they are talking about, when it comes to complicated technical translation.
But I followed your path many years ago, when "machine translation" was not yet as good as it is today, in particular in the most "popular" language pairs.
Today, with too much human and artificial intelligence competition, and agencies making the most out of it, the rates paid to freelance translators have degraded that much that it is barely worth to bother translating anymore
Here again, you might be lucky with your "exotic" languages that are maybe not yet as advanced in MT and have less competition, so you still might have a chance to be able to market your translation skills at a decent rate.
So, some extra advice besides what colleagues have told you already :
- stick to your "exotic" or "rare" language pairs
- focus on technical translation, in your actual field of expertise
- try to specialize in some niche market with not too many players
- try to add value to your proposition : not just only translation, but be ready to go the extra mile, including DTP of the documents you are editing, technical writing about complicated stuff you are acquainted with (for example offering tech startups your skills in making / writing / translating user manuals of machinery or software, etc...), etc...
- do not follow the path of lowering your rates too much to get a job.
(This competitive behaviour has the avalanche effect that led us to so low rates accross the whole industry...)
I do not want to discourage you, and you should try because you have some cutting edge advantage over other "newcomers" to the market, but you must be aware that today it might be tougher than expected to gain your spot in the sun an earn a decent living in translation (see many interesting posts in the ProZ forums about "getting started", among others).
"Bon courage", you will need it, and good luck too, which is always welcome.
Martin ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 23:33
Member
English to Turkish
| Dear Martin Riordan, a question if I may... | Jan 24, 2023 |
Martin Riordan wrote:
I switched careers 12 years ago at the age of 60. I had been a pig farmer in Brazil for 35 years until that activity hit a brick wall. So I had to find a new profession and translation fitted the bill perfectly.
I started off doing some translations for an agency in São Paulo. However, as I researched on the internet, I found there was a vast international translation industry that apparently paid much higher rates than Brazilian agencies. But how to break into it?
I had found Proz and joined it. I discovered that Kudoz points were the key to standing out in searches for translators and for a year or so dedicated myself to answering questions in my language pair (PT-BREN). It was good fun and I made several virtual friends. I can remember my excitement when I reached 100 points! (Now I have over 7,000...)
Gradually I received some job proposals and offered a fairly low rate in order to secure them. But as my Kudos points and my client portfolio grew, I slowly increased my rate, always offering good service and high-quality translations. Soon I reached what I considered a satisfactory market rate and was being offered more work than I could handle.
Twelve years later, I get enough work from existing clients and also new ones who find my Proz profile so I no longer try to promote myself. And I have now finished building my new house, totally on earnings from translation, so my outgoings have fallen considerably.
So, based on my experience, I would recommend earning Kudoz points among other promotional activities. It means you will appear at or near the top of the list in searches for translators in your language pairs. My career was built on the Proz site - it offered everything I needed.
Good luck!
That's a very inspiring post indeed, and I do hope that a certain British expat in Brazil, a long-time sufferer of the never-ending-economic-crisis-in-Brazil, sees it and takes heart.
You've obviously done well for yourself, and more power to you. But do you think you'd have been able to achieve all this had you been living in the UK, Germany, US or Australia instead of Brazil (for want of a better word, in a 'developing country')?
I see the colleagues from 'first world countries' bitching and moaning about low rates, Machine Translation (and how they love to keep harping on about it) all the time. I'd very much doubt an EN>DE translator would be able to build a new house anywhere in Germany given the standards of living over there, but obviously you can do that in Brazil (you hear that Paul?).
So once again, do you think you'd be able to make a decent living in the UK or your native Ireland with your current income and client base (after all the taxes)?
[Edited at 2023-01-24 08:26 GMT]
| | | | | Fatty two houses | Jan 24, 2023 |
Baran Keki wrote:
So once again, do you think you'd be able to make a decent living in the UK or your native Ireland with your current income and client base (after all the taxes)?
To be fair, Baran, I recently managed to buy a house someone else built plus one for my ex-wife on a translator’s earnings
(PS Maybe Brazil is no longer in such a dire terrible crisis now everyone else’s inflation is catching up?)
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 23:33
Member
English to Turkish
| A Success Story... | Jan 24, 2023 |
Ice Scream wrote: To be fair, Baran, I recently managed to buy a house someone else built plus one for my ex-wife on a translator’s earnings
You should write your autobiography at some point, I'm sure it'll be up there with Corinne McKay's book.. maybe you can buy the third one with the proceeds
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Baran Keki wrote: You should write your autobiography at some point, I'm sure it'll be up there with Corinne McKay's book.. maybe you can buy the third one with the proceeds
My memoirs will come across more like Prince Harry’s book tbh. Especially when I talk about the time Prince William called me a nasty name, while taking my virginity behind a pub.
Tbf though most people on these forums are making a living as translators in the affluent West even without my prodigious talents and cheeky charm.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: fake profile | | Pages in topic: < [1 2] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Career change advice needed and appreciated | Wordfast Pro | Translation Memory Software for Any Platform
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