| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | "Call for tenders" Thread poster: Robert Forstag
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Neil Coffey 
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:20
French to English
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| Experience for *who*... | Mar 27, 2014 |
Apart from issues with NDAs and general commercial confidentiality, it seems to me that:
- the whole raison d'être of the agency is to sort out negotiations with clients, tender bids and other procurement activities so that individual translators don't have to;
- it seems to me odd (though I confess slightly a fault of the system) that an agency should be trying to win contacts off the back of work that a translator has done for *other* clients.
It makes a little... See more Apart from issues with NDAs and general commercial confidentiality, it seems to me that:
- the whole raison d'être of the agency is to sort out negotiations with clients, tender bids and other procurement activities so that individual translators don't have to;
- it seems to me odd (though I confess slightly a fault of the system) that an agency should be trying to win contacts off the back of work that a translator has done for *other* clients.
It makes a little more sense-- and I wonder if that was the intention of the system-- for an agency to bid on the basis of work done by its translators *FOR THAT AGENCY*, in which case it seems more reasonable that the agency may negotiate with the end clients to release information about respective contracts.
Anyway, in response to these kind of requests, I generally just tell the agency "please feel free to get back in touch with me if you would like to assign me some work once you have actually won the bid". ▲ Collapse
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 23:20
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | "Applying" through an agency seems like a "lose-lose" proposition | Mar 27, 2014 |
If you spend the 2-3 days counting the words/pages and importuning a couple of dozen agencies to write messages verifying said counts, then it seems like one of two things can happen:
1.
Your efforts will be of nought, as the agency (or agencies) you apply with won't win the contract.
2.
An agency you apply with will win the bid, and you will have massive amounts of work for the next year at a rate equivalent to about $12/hour.
@Maria:
Thank you for you... See more If you spend the 2-3 days counting the words/pages and importuning a couple of dozen agencies to write messages verifying said counts, then it seems like one of two things can happen:
1.
Your efforts will be of nought, as the agency (or agencies) you apply with won't win the contract.
2.
An agency you apply with will win the bid, and you will have massive amounts of work for the next year at a rate equivalent to about $12/hour.
@Maria:
Thank you for your advice and generous offer for further information, which lead to two questions:
1.
Has such a call for tenders actually been issued, and if so where can it be found?
2.
Would a US-based translator really have a chance at having his bid accepted for work that specifically identifies UK English as the target language? ▲ Collapse
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1. Yes such calls for tenders are regularly issued. A major website is Tenders Electronic Daily. You have to search for the CPV code for Translation Services. That's what agencies do. You can also go to the website of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament etc.
2. To be allowed to participate, you have to be based in a member country of the European Union, in a country which has signed the WTO Agreement on Gover... See more 1. Yes such calls for tenders are regularly issued. A major website is Tenders Electronic Daily. You have to search for the CPV code for Translation Services. That's what agencies do. You can also go to the website of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament etc.
2. To be allowed to participate, you have to be based in a member country of the European Union, in a country which has signed the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (Armenia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan,
Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, the United
States) or in an EFTA-country (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). This list of countries applies to calls for tenders launched by the Commission and the Parliament. I am not sure for the Translation Centre of the European Union. If you are based in a non-member country, it is better to ask the contracting authority directly, whether you may participate, before filling out all the paper work. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | List of countries with access to EU tendering procedures | Mar 27, 2014 |
Apart from the above mentioned countries, persons and companies bases in FYROM, Albania, Montenegro and Serbia,Mexico, Chile, Colombia,
Peru, Iraq, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama
have access to tendering procedures of the Commission,
only above the thresholds of 130 000 SDR for translation services. As I said above, it is always better to ask. It all depends on the agreements signed between the EU and the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, access to procurement is... See more Apart from the above mentioned countries, persons and companies bases in FYROM, Albania, Montenegro and Serbia,Mexico, Chile, Colombia,
Peru, Iraq, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama
have access to tendering procedures of the Commission,
only above the thresholds of 130 000 SDR for translation services. As I said above, it is always better to ask. It all depends on the agreements signed between the EU and the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, access to procurement is not liberalized on a world wide scale. A EU citizen wouldn't have access either to calls for tenders launched by countries which have not signed an agreement with the EU.
But one thing is sure: Once you are admitted because your country has signed an agreement with the EU, there is no discrimination based on your nationality. All procedures are non discriminatory and transparent.
Please be aware that I just post this information to help fellow translators. It is not meant to be an official legal advice. ▲ Collapse
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| Even if an agency wins and hires you, the benefit to you is highly dubious | Aug 11, 2015 |
I have actually participated in tender translations in the past. The workload has been high, but the payment per source/hour is very low and there's little room for negotiation.
On top of that, in many cases it is not enough to merely translate the text based on your expertise and to look up translations of terms and proper names — you are also expected to research the exact wording of various phrases from corpora and use these in your translation. In some cases, you actually need... See more I have actually participated in tender translations in the past. The workload has been high, but the payment per source/hour is very low and there's little room for negotiation.
On top of that, in many cases it is not enough to merely translate the text based on your expertise and to look up translations of terms and proper names — you are also expected to research the exact wording of various phrases from corpora and use these in your translation. In some cases, you actually need to locate a phrase through documents of over 5.000 words themselves, copy/paste part of it and delicately alter something very specific, which makes things even worse. At least in my experience, you are also expected to do more things like copy paste completed target files into templates, basically perform QA on the final documents etc. (and I think everyone knows these extra 5-10 minutes accumulate and matter quite a lot.)
Even the most complicated legal texts I've ever seen go much faster than EU texts. Even if you get experienced and the job goes faster, it won't go fast enough to get you anywhere. So if, for example, you have agreed on 0.05 EUR per source word and 15 EUR per hour (extremely low rate to begin with), assuming the translation would go not very, but reasonably fast (i.e. 250-350 words per hour, 1000-1500 per hour of editing), you would make around 100-150 EUR *gross* per day.
But if the high quality that European legislation requires is to be maintained, actual speeds tend to be much slower than that. For me this can range from 150 to 250 words translated per hour, sometimes even less than that. Having to constantly consult Guides, tables, existing legislation, various instructions in other separate files, termbases and ironically NOT being able to depend on the quickness of TMs, because you need to follow specific reference material that supersedes them, is simply not the same as many other texts.
When it comes to review, I've had cases where I spent 2.5 hours for 1000 words, because the (highly capable, but underpaid) translator simply got so lost in the research that a few things slipped by, and beyond that, the main reason for delay was that I had to double check every term/phrasing translation he/she had opted for!
Even highly technical texts go fast as you grow more experienced, as long as you have some liberty to translate in correct, appropriate ways. EU/EC law? Good luck with that. Honestly, I cannot see how even an independent contractor would make decent money via European tenders, but I am convinced it's the only potentially worthwhile way to go about it, if you don't want to get paid peanuts (at least in my language combination).
[Edited at 2015-08-12 07:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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