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Poll: How did you get your first translation job? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How did you get your first translation job?".
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Mary Worby 
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:55
German to English
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The old-fashioned way, by sending out my CV to agencies.
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airmailrpl
Brazil
Local time: 16:55
Member (2005)
English to Portuguese
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| How does one remember ?? | Aug 29, 2016 |
It was so long ago that I would not remember how I got it or what it was either!!
[Edited at 2016-08-29 08:19 GMT]
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| Other - I was hired | Aug 29, 2016 |
I took a test and was hired to work in an international organization. That job led to another job in another international organization. By the time I went freelance 24 years ago, I already knew people in many different organizations and had work waiting for me.
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Ana Vozone
Local time: 20:55
Member (2010)
English to Portuguese
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| My first job was a... prize! | Aug 29, 2016 |
My first translation job was actually a prize given by one of my teachers at ISLA (Translator School in Lisbon) to the two students he felt had done better during the final year. It was paid, of course!
It was a small book and my classmate and I split the job. Since I had accepted a summer job in Heidelberg, I took the torn half of the book with me and actually wrote the translation by hand, since I did not have a typewriter with me (this was in 1973!). I would then mail the pages ... See more My first translation job was actually a prize given by one of my teachers at ISLA (Translator School in Lisbon) to the two students he felt had done better during the final year. It was paid, of course!
It was a small book and my classmate and I split the job. Since I had accepted a summer job in Heidelberg, I took the torn half of the book with me and actually wrote the translation by hand, since I did not have a typewriter with me (this was in 1973!). I would then mail the pages in batches to a friend in Lisbon who would type them. It all worked out very well in the end. Looking back, I can now see how the "pace of things" was much, much slower. (Only the Post Office was more efficient then than it is now...) ▲ Collapse
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In 1985, I was contacted by a Belgian agency looking for someone to translate every month “le Bulletin des Communautés européennes” After some rigorous tests, I got that first job and it was a big one! I have no idea who gave them my name...
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John Cutler
Spain
Local time: 21:55
Spanish to English
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| It was a seamless transition | Aug 29, 2016 |
People heard me speaking Spanish/Catalan and they just started asking me to translate written things for them; after that, it just sort of snowballed. I guess you could say I seamlessly transferred into it from TEFL work.
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Gudrun Maydorn (X)
Germany
Local time: 21:55
English to German
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| By talking to potential customers at a trade fair | Aug 29, 2016 |
One of my special fields is medical instruments. When I started out as a freelancer (after decades in full-time employment) I visited an international trade fair to contact potential customers. Two of those contacts resulted in my first translation jobs.
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Paul Adie (X)
Germany
Spanish to English
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| Contacts at an agency | Aug 29, 2016 |
I knew a couple of girls who worked at a translation agency. I did a few small jobs for them, then they became a main client for around 6/7 years, then they disappeared. Not the first time a PM has left a position and then the new one brings in her/his own contacts. I've found new clients in the meantime, thankfully!
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Mike Sadler (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:55
Spanish to English
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I sent letters to 50 firms on the Humber Bank, an industrial area in England where I lived at the time (early 80s) and still live and one of them, a huge multinational, sent me a tidy job. After that, I got nearly all my work through the Yellow Pages.
I printed all the letters and envelopes on an Amstrad daisywheel printer.
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:55
Russian to English
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In memoriam | In the RAF, responding to an appeal for volunteers | Aug 29, 2016 |
In 1951 I was an engine fitter in the RAF, having completed a three-year engineering apprentice in 1950. I failed a medical for aircrew and was not very happy at the prospect of continuing as a fitter indefinitely, so when I saw a call for volunteers to learn Russian, I put my name forward.
This led to a Russian course in 1952, followed by work monitoring communications from June 1953. I later found the engineering background useful for translation work.
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| by phoning, then mailing info, to potential clients | Aug 29, 2016 |
I phoned potential clients (agencies) in my city and province, asking if they would like my information. For those who said yes, I mailed that info. My first ever job came via a faxed death certificate that slowly churned its way out of the old fashioned fax machine, scaring me, because I thought I was being notified of the death of someone I knew. The e-mail informing me that this was a job came afterward.
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| Direct contacts | Aug 29, 2016 |
I am not sure which came first, my brother-in-law, who was an archaeologist, or a friend and colleague of my parents, who heard through the grapevine that I lived in Denmark, and wanted a book translated for her archives.
Probably my brother-in-law - he had English-speaking colleagues who sometimes translated for him, and occasionally he wrote in English himself, but someone had told him his English sounded like German, and he wanted a native speaker to do the translation. So I lear... See more I am not sure which came first, my brother-in-law, who was an archaeologist, or a friend and colleague of my parents, who heard through the grapevine that I lived in Denmark, and wanted a book translated for her archives.
Probably my brother-in-law - he had English-speaking colleagues who sometimes translated for him, and occasionally he wrote in English himself, but someone had told him his English sounded like German, and he wanted a native speaker to do the translation. So I learned a lot of fascinating archaeology and dendrochronology... and that it is important to check your terminology with the client! Also that in some cases the client may be the only reliable source of terminology anyway.
I dabbled in children's books and cookery for family and friends, and then landed a job in-house, partly because I could talk about the book and the dendrochronology. ▲ Collapse
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Mónica Algazi
Uruguay
Local time: 16:55
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
| Through a friend | Aug 29, 2016 |
He was -and still is- a film director and needed help with the translation of a script.
It was a rewarding experience.
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