| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | How to let agencies know you're unavailable Thread poster: Natalia Pastor Pearce
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Hi all!
I've been freelancing for around 9 months now and have come across the issue (several times) that there seems to be no sustainable way to let agencies know my availability for work. I started off using the Proz calendar and linking it in my email signature and on all profiles, and updated it religiously throughout the day, every day. It got completely ignored. Since then, I've been setting an email autoresponder saying that my schedule is currently full or that I'm unavailable for ... See more Hi all!
I've been freelancing for around 9 months now and have come across the issue (several times) that there seems to be no sustainable way to let agencies know my availability for work. I started off using the Proz calendar and linking it in my email signature and on all profiles, and updated it religiously throughout the day, every day. It got completely ignored. Since then, I've been setting an email autoresponder saying that my schedule is currently full or that I'm unavailable for work, but as many clients use XTRF or other automated platforms, they're not getting my autoresponder until they chase up requests via email, which of course could make me look unreliable/unresponsive in the long term.
Any advice on how to navigate this without having to update every agency's internal calendar every single time I can't take new requests (it'd take up a considerable amount of time and limit my flexibility!)?
I'd be grateful for any suggestions ▲ Collapse
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Simply reply to each job offer that you can't take it. You can't get that many.
| | | | Natalia Pastor Pearce
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:27
Member (2023)
Spanish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | You'd be surprised... | Mar 12 |
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Simply reply to each job offer that you can't take it. You can't get that many.
This seems like the most obvious option but I quickly found that I was spending a lot of my day replying to emails to reject jobs. Not a very productive use of my time!
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 15:27
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Just let them know | Mar 12 |
I ignore internal calendars (and the Proz calendar for that matter) and reply to every single e-mail within minutes (most of the time). It provides a human touch and it's less robotic.
This might depend on the number of requests you receive, but we surely can't be talking about dozens a day, every day?
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Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:27
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Raise your prices? | Mar 12 |
Natalia Pastor Pearce wrote:
This seems like the most obvious option but I quickly found that I was spending a lot of my day replying to emails to reject jobs.
Like Lieven, I ignore internal calendars.
If you're in the enviable position of getting so many job offers that you can't keep up, maybe hike your rates. That will filter some of them out.
Otherwise it's just a case of grin and bear it, and of readying a variety of canned replies that you can fire off with a couple of keypresses in a couple of seconds. A text expansion utility like Beeftext will help with the latter issue.
Dan
| | | | | That's the answer right there | Mar 12 |
Natalia Pastor Pearce wrote:
I've been setting an email autoresponder saying that my schedule is currently full or that I'm unavailable for work, but as many clients use XTRF or other automated platforms, they're not getting my autoresponder until they chase up requests via email, ....
An auto-reply is fine.
Although personally I only use one for actual absence. If I'm busy that day, I like to reply to suggest another deadline.
| | | | Agneta Pallinder
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:27
Member (2014)
Swedish to English
+ ...
| There are requests and requests | Mar 13 |
I get a lot of poorly targeted requests, starting "dear linguist" or something similar. My rule is simply to ignore these.
Requests that include my name in the greeting I reply to, and if I can't/won't agree to do the job I have a one line polite "thank you but unfortunately..." standard phrase that takes almost no time to write.
| | | | Natalia Pastor Pearce
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:27
Member (2023)
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you all for your replies
As some of you have guessed, the whole reason I asked this question in the first place is because the number of emails I receive does become overwhelming, to the point that it's disruptive of actual production work...
There's some really good suggestions (raising rates being a particularly good one in certain circumstances), so thank you! I'll see how I get on with some well-implemented c... See more Thank you all for your replies
As some of you have guessed, the whole reason I asked this question in the first place is because the number of emails I receive does become overwhelming, to the point that it's disruptive of actual production work...
There's some really good suggestions (raising rates being a particularly good one in certain circumstances), so thank you! I'll see how I get on with some well-implemented changes ▲ Collapse
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| Decide which ones you actually want to work with | Mar 13 |
I think in the end it comes down to which agencies you actually WANT to work with. This seems to be an untenable situation for the wrong reasons - if agencies you want to work with are constantly contacting you with offers that you keep turning down, maybe review your priorities. And if agencies you don't want to work with keep contacting you... well that's easily solved. Review this torrent of offers that you're getting - are they worth accepting? Or as Dan suggests... raise your rates...
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 09:27
English to Finnish
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On your email, click reply, type "not available", and click send. With my email prvider it takes about 15 seconds.
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 08:27
English to Russian
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That you've registered in 2023.
Natalia, I'm sorry but even with your highly complicated and specialized fields of expertise such overwhelming popularity (no pun or disrespect intended) sounds a bit fairytalish these days. Are you sure you are not receiving scam after scam after scam? Although you are not a newbie translator, you are still a relative Proz newcomer. Scammers love newcomers. By answering each and every email you confirm that your email is active and you are willing t... See more That you've registered in 2023.
Natalia, I'm sorry but even with your highly complicated and specialized fields of expertise such overwhelming popularity (no pun or disrespect intended) sounds a bit fairytalish these days. Are you sure you are not receiving scam after scam after scam? Although you are not a newbie translator, you are still a relative Proz newcomer. Scammers love newcomers. By answering each and every email you confirm that your email is active and you are willing to listen, so the dark net may have you at their disposal.
Did you pay proper attention to the origins of those emails, including email addresses? Just a couple of days ago I received one fantastic job offer from [email protected].
Maybe you could post at least a portion of one offer, and many oldtimers will recognize the scam immediately, if that would be the case.
I hope I'm 125% wrong. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Natalia Pastor Pearce
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:27
Member (2023)
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Definitely not scammers | Mar 15 |
IrinaN wrote: That you've registered in 2023. Natalia, I'm sorry but even with your highly complicated and specialized fields of expertise such overwhelming popularity (no pun or disrespect intended) sounds a bit fairytalish these days. Are you sure you are not receiving scam after scam after scam? Although you are not a newbie translator, you are still a relative Proz newcomer. Scammers love newcomers. By answering each and every email you confirm that your email is active and you are willing to listen, so the dark net may have you at their disposal. Did you pay proper attention to the origins of those emails, including email addresses? Just a couple of days ago I received one fantastic job offer from [email protected]. Maybe you could post at least a portion of one offer, and many oldtimers will recognize the scam immediately, if that would be the case. I hope I'm 125% wrong.
Yes, this is certainly something to watch out for, specially for newbie freelancers like me, but I can 125% confirm they're not scammers (seen a few and can spot them a mile away) The requests mostly come from two particular agencies who send teeny tiny jobs via their respective vendor platforms (many of which are first-come-first-served*, I might add, so not ideal work but good enough for quiet times!), and when I have a full schedule, it feels like I get an almost constant stream of these requests throughout the day. As others have mentioned, though, it's probably time to figure out which agencies I actually *want* to work with and raise my rates for the others. I'm certain this will solve the issue!
*Note here: yes, I could just ignore them and that's it, but believe it or not, I got followed up by both agencies because they'd noticed I wasn't being responsive with requests lately! So it seems they do actually pay attention to who accepts these jobs and who doesn't...
[Edited at 2024-03-15 12:21 GMT]
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Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 15:27
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| create a dedicated folder | Mar 15 |
What about creating a dedicated folder and a rule telling your email programm to filter messages from certain senders or with certain subject lines in that folder? Replying to mass emails in most cases makes no sense as they are triggered automatically, and generally replies to them go nowhere or to Mr. Noreply. Most platforms also allow to disable notifications.
| | | | Adam Dickinson
Canada
Local time: 09:27
Member (2016)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Natalia Pastor Pearce wrote: Yes, this is certainly something to watch out for, specially for newbie freelancers like me, but I can 125% confirm they're not scammers (seen a few and can spot them a mile away) The requests mostly come from two particular agencies who send teeny tiny jobs via their respective vendor platforms (many of which are first-come-first-served*, I might add, so not ideal work but good enough for quiet times!), and when I have a full schedule, it feels like I get an almost constant stream of these requests throughout the day. As others have mentioned, though, it's probably time to figure out which agencies I actually *want* to work with and raise my rates for the others. I'm certain this will solve the issue!
In these agencies, is there not someone with a title like 'Vendor Manager' or similar, or else a PM you regularly deal with, whose job it is to handle requests from the translators? When I am taking time off or will be at capacity for a few days, what I do is just send a message to my regular PM or my client's Vendor Manager saying that I won't be available for X days and they enter it into their system and that's that. If they contact me on a day I said I would be unavailable, I refer to my earlier message and that usually ends things. It saves time for the PMs too, since they're not chasing after me when there's no chance of me taking on work.
Also, you mention that some of the clients use XRTF -- at least with the one client I have who uses XTRF, there's a tab on the left-hand side of the screen called 'Holidays' where you can block off days so that the system keeps requests from being sent to you on the dates you enter. That's actually one of the things I like the most about that client's system; there's no need to actually inform anyone, I just update my availability right in their system.
| | | | | For systems like that... | Mar 15 |
Natalia Pastor Pearce wrote:
(many of which are first-come-first-served*, I might add, so not ideal work but good enough for quiet times!),
... tbh, I don't think you need to worry over much. If you ain't the first, you ain't getting the job anyway, and that's all they're bothered about. Just assigning the job, to anyone. They're not expecting to get a barrage of polite responses from people who missed the boat. They don't want them. The box has been shifted, they can move to the next one. Sure, it de-personalises us, but in fairness, I think they expect to be de-personalised in return.
Save your emails for people you have built up a rapport with. Which will never happen with these systems (voice of experience!) which, in truth, I suspect is partly the point.
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