How to win tenders / get more translation work

kenax wrote:
Perused the help files, ran some searches on the forums and was surprised I couldn't find much information on this. You would think there would be some central place instructing translators how to go about getting work.

What criteria do clients use when choosing translators?

How important is it for a client that you have a paid account with ProZ?

I certainly consider my prices competitive - definitely less than what's posted as the average on ProZ. Even competitive for my own, cut throat market.

When I'm given work my customers are happy, and I've gotten a few of them to post positive comments about me through the WWA - but with little affect. Do I need more positive WWAs?

I do not see any advantage in a paid membership.Please, someone enlighten me (although I understand - why would you necessarily help the competition find work?)

Neil Coffey wrote:

I translate mainly for direct clients and sometimes recruit other collaborators to help me via ProZ. So for what it's worth, from "both sides of the fence", some things I would personally suggest:

- make sure your response to a job ad *succinctly* sums up why you're suitable for *that* particular job-- a few sentences tailored to the particular job are much more effective than a long, waffly "stock" e-mail that you send in response to every job ad
- make sure your CV isn't too noddyish and "gets to the point" within a couple of sentences as to why you're a good translator and where your experience comes from in particular fields. Remember, nobody cares about your marital status, type of driving licence, name of your high school, love of hang gliding etc.
- in your CV/resume, don't bang on about things that are basic requisites, not selling points (don't tell me that you own a dictionary or that you know how to use Microsoft Word or that you have a PC and scanner...!)
- demonstrate good knowledge of the source language (so don't send an e-mail or a CV littered with language mistakes)
- give out the message that you're dedicated to language/translation
- don't see sites like ProZ as the be-all and end-all of getting jobs : work on your own web site and marketing to clients/agencies (pick your best specialist subject area and build some pages of genuine content around that area that will demonstrate your skills and attract visitors via search engines); initially, you could consider investing a little money in advertising via Google Adwords or similar to "get the ball rolling" with visitors to your site.

In terms of knowing who has visited your profile, and whether it was from a search/forum posting etc, you can get an indication of this, but I think it's a members-only feature. In many cases, though, you'll just get an IP address that visited your site, and if this IP isn't owned by the actual business, you won't know who was actually visiting your profile. In terms of building up a mailing list of potential clients, you'd be better off considering adding one to your own web site.

I personally don't care whether somebody is a ProZ member or not in terms of how I view their profile. However, there are some jobs that non-members can't vote on for 12 hours, and in some cases I personally can't wait 12 hours to choose a candidate, and presumably other outsourcers will be in a similar position. So there will be cases where "the early bird catches the worm".

Pablo Bouvier wrote:
Why should I lose my time (time is money and it is my time and my money you don't pay) adapting a CV to your requirements, if you will not hire me for a fixed job?

kenax wrote:

hey guys, thank you for your responses and I will consider them carefully. Some points: many have told me my prices are too low, but I'm also good at keeping my costs very low. I therefore feel greedy and guilty charging "full western prices". Anyway, trying to overcome this hurdle.
Concerning my varied CV, sometimes I translate and other times I manage projects. In the past I used to have two ProZ profiles but they caught wind of this and told me to unify them. The number of languages my database (with about 7,000 registered translators) now offers is more than 210, but I do not get work in all those languages. If I get a job in a language combination I have no experience in I have a complex and lengthy procedure to test the translators in that language combination. I usually do not accept a job in such a language combination unless there is enough time and the project is large enough. But I've done it a few times in the past. Personally I also design web pages, program PHP, online databases and other things (as I enjoy to constantly learn and do not want to only translate), while over the years I have also built up a database of external programmers etc., so I technically do offer those services. In any case I guess I can see how such a robust translator CV can cast a question mark on my own translating abilities, which I have been told is of high quality. Anyway, I think this is a good discussion and can help beginning translators (and hopefully me) find more work. Thanks a lot!

Neil Coffey wrote:



Sorry, maybe I didn't express myself very well -- obviously I'm not expecting somebody to re-write their CV just for a 2,000-word translation task. But I am expecting them to write 3 or 4 sentences -- or at least, in practice, the ones that tend to grab my attention are the ones where people have done this.

Remember: I've had 50 responses to a job ad and I need to sift through those responses as quickly as possible because I'm also busy getting on with part of the translation myself. So if somebody can quickly convince me in a few sentences that they have the relevant experience for the particular job I've posted, I'm more likely to pick them. If I have to wade through a waffly copy-and-pasted e-mail talking about a person's experience of translation for the airline industry when my project is about fashion design, then just in terms of being practical, I'll probably just move on to one of the other e-mails.