What does "delivery deadline" refer to exactly in job postings?
Thread poster: marta pires
marta pires
marta pires
Portugal
Local time: 12:09
English to Portuguese
+ ...
May 25, 2013

Hi everyone,

I'm a new translator, just graduated and just registered in PROZ.
I'm getting a bit confused navigating through job offers in this site, especially in what refers to job posters' "DELIVERY DEADLINES", which I at first understood to be OUR delivery deadline, but sometimes are set one hour or a few hours after the quoting deadline and in some cases this just seems totally unfeasible due to the high workload/word count.
Although this is probably a silly quest
... See more
Hi everyone,

I'm a new translator, just graduated and just registered in PROZ.
I'm getting a bit confused navigating through job offers in this site, especially in what refers to job posters' "DELIVERY DEADLINES", which I at first understood to be OUR delivery deadline, but sometimes are set one hour or a few hours after the quoting deadline and in some cases this just seems totally unfeasible due to the high workload/word count.
Although this is probably a silly question, I'm also quite green at this, so can any of you wiser, more experienced translators and more experienced users of this site clear this doubt for me?
Thank you very much!

Marta
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:09
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Not a silly question May 27, 2013

Hello Marta,

Not a silly question - I sometimes cannot believe the delivery deadlines! My understanding is that this is when they are expecting the job to be delivered by you or me. Of course, they are hoping that someone will snatch up the offer within seconds of it being posted, and will start work very soon after, so I don't think the closeness of the two deadlines is relevant.

But I agree that they are quite often totally impossible for one person to achieve (unles
... See more
Hello Marta,

Not a silly question - I sometimes cannot believe the delivery deadlines! My understanding is that this is when they are expecting the job to be delivered by you or me. Of course, they are hoping that someone will snatch up the offer within seconds of it being posted, and will start work very soon after, so I don't think the closeness of the two deadlines is relevant.

But I agree that they are quite often totally impossible for one person to achieve (unless they're just going to dash off some rough approximation, which I'm certainly not prepared to do). Even when it is theoretically possible, how often do we have absolutely nothing else to do in the next few hours? I think you will find, as I do, that some of the jobs here just need to be ignored. You certainly don't want to risk starting out in your career by delivery rushed, unchecked work.

Concentrate on the more feasible jobs here, Marta, and forget the others. Do visit the Site Guidance Centre and follow all the good advice there for newbies to the profession and/or to ProZ.com: http://www.proz.com/guidance-center. Did you know we're all coming to Porto in a few days for the ProZ.com International Conference? Hope you'll welcome us with some good weather!
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 13:09
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
It is your proposed deadline May 27, 2013

marta_cpa wrote:
I'm getting a bit confused navigating through job offers in this site, especially in what refers to job posters' "DELIVERY DEADLINES"...


The client will usually state in his job post what his deadline is, but when you submit a quote, you can also suggest a delivery deadline, using a dropdown box. I usually just set that to the same date and time as what the client had said. Personally I find that to be a redundant dropdown box and an annoyance to have to set every time.


 
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 13:09
English to Polish
+ ...
Additionally Jun 3, 2013

If you're new, perhaps it makes sense to warn you about a certain type of clients or outsourcers who take a truckload of time to pick offers but then have only 1-2 days for you to translate, say, 20-30 pages of text. Obviously, they don't want to pay the rush fee. But they still took their sweet time picking the best (or cheapest) translator for the project, so it's their fault. Hold your line when that happens, and skip such jobs unless you can confirm that the deadline can be moved or your off... See more
If you're new, perhaps it makes sense to warn you about a certain type of clients or outsourcers who take a truckload of time to pick offers but then have only 1-2 days for you to translate, say, 20-30 pages of text. Obviously, they don't want to pay the rush fee. But they still took their sweet time picking the best (or cheapest) translator for the project, so it's their fault. Hold your line when that happens, and skip such jobs unless you can confirm that the deadline can be moved or your offer can be accepted sooner than the auction was originally intended to end. Carry on, soldier.Collapse


 
Norskpro
Norskpro
Norway
Local time: 13:09
Member
English to Norwegian
+ ...
See this thread Jun 4, 2013

Hello Marta,

I asked a similar question when I was new to Proz, a few months ago. Here is the thread with my posting:
http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_job_systems/242318-job_quoting_and_delivery_deadlines:_their_meaning.html


 


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What does "delivery deadline" refer to exactly in job postings?







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