volunteer translation : is it really valued experience? Thread poster: Sandrine Ananie
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I will be starting my own translation business in a few months' time and in the meantime am doing volunteer translation in order to gain experience and add a few lines to my CV. I only started doing this a month ago and it's going great (my language pair seems to be very much in demand for volunteer translations and I only ever got the warmest feedback).
My question is : when I start sending my résumé to clients/agencies, will my volunteer experience really be considered valuable... See more I will be starting my own translation business in a few months' time and in the meantime am doing volunteer translation in order to gain experience and add a few lines to my CV. I only started doing this a month ago and it's going great (my language pair seems to be very much in demand for volunteer translations and I only ever got the warmest feedback).
My question is : when I start sending my résumé to clients/agencies, will my volunteer experience really be considered valuable? Of course I don't explicitly mention on my résumé that I did it for free (!), but given the areas I covered, it's pretty easy to guess. How do clients/agencies look at volunteer work? Are some organizations or assignments more "prestigious" than others to mention?
Thanks for your insight,
Sandrine ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Arlene Feynman had it right | Sep 14, 2009 |
"What do you care what other people think?"
If the volunteer work isn't worth doing for its own sake rather than just stuffing a CV, then that too will be obvious and may diminish its value. But what should really matter in any case is the quality of the work, not the fact that you've done it - paid or otherwise. If confidentiality does not prevent the texts from being used in your marketing efforts, simply add them to your portfolio and use excerpts as sample texts in your p... See more "What do you care what other people think?"
If the volunteer work isn't worth doing for its own sake rather than just stuffing a CV, then that too will be obvious and may diminish its value. But what should really matter in any case is the quality of the work, not the fact that you've done it - paid or otherwise. If confidentiality does not prevent the texts from being used in your marketing efforts, simply add them to your portfolio and use excerpts as sample texts in your profile here. The results will speak for themselves. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 17:19
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Steepest learning curve | Sep 14, 2009 |
Sandrine A wrote:
My question is : when I start sending my résumé to clients/agencies, will my volunteer experience really be considered valuable?
I think so, yes. I'll wager that a new translator learns more about translation in his first 20 000 or 50 000 words than at any other stage of his training or career.
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I think that clients look for experience, and whether you gained your experience through work from private clients or volunteer clients makes no difference.
I am relatively busy nowadays, but I still translate for free for some organisations, because the work fills up some of my time when I wouldn't be doing anything else. It's still great experience for me and the names of these organisations end up on my CV. Some of the names are well-recognised, and certainly make a difference w... See more I think that clients look for experience, and whether you gained your experience through work from private clients or volunteer clients makes no difference.
I am relatively busy nowadays, but I still translate for free for some organisations, because the work fills up some of my time when I wouldn't be doing anything else. It's still great experience for me and the names of these organisations end up on my CV. Some of the names are well-recognised, and certainly make a difference when paying clients review my CV.
The other day I submitted my CV to an agency, and on one of the forms I had to fill out the exact number of words I had translated in previous years. They wanted to know the names of the clients, but also the exact word count. Thanks to my volunteer work the word count was quite high.
www.linguafranca.eu
[Edited at 2009-09-14 13:43 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Henry Hinds
United States
Local time: 09:19
English to Spanish
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In memoriam | Clients? Exact word count? | Sep 14, 2009 |
Wow, some of us would sure be at a loss if we were asked for that.
Reminds me of the time someone asked Jean Paul Getty how much he was worth. His reply: "Any man who knows how much he is worth can't be worth much".
That said, I think volunteer experience is as valuable as any other, and we do not have to state whether or not it was paid.
| | | | | volunteer work | Nov 16, 2010 |
Hello all,I am a new translator and would like to please have suggestions on volunteer work in the translation field to build myself up.I will be grateful to have new ideas and tips.
Thanks
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