"Starting" as a Freelancer -- with translation experience Thread poster: Larissa Ekonoja
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Hi all!
I've been a lurker on Proz boards for about 8 months now, waiting for the day when I would leave my fulltime job in IT and start as a fulltime freelancer. (yay!)
I was hoping for some advice both with my CV/profile and the best way to find customers. I don't know if I should try to find companies or try to get jobs from bureaus. I am a technical translator with an engineering degree and corporate experience, working on my Masters in linguistics now.
... See more Hi all!
I've been a lurker on Proz boards for about 8 months now, waiting for the day when I would leave my fulltime job in IT and start as a fulltime freelancer. (yay!)
I was hoping for some advice both with my CV/profile and the best way to find customers. I don't know if I should try to find companies or try to get jobs from bureaus. I am a technical translator with an engineering degree and corporate experience, working on my Masters in linguistics now.
I have actually been translating since 1997 and I have about 5 years of fulltime experience working on larger technical projects, but I have never needed to go and find customers. The customers I have had have been primarily academic (lots of theses)but I don't have any contacts right now. I do have two other steady business customers, just with a very light workload.
I'd be really glad for advice on my CV and profile, plus some tips about how to start finding new tasks. Also, I do translate Eng-Swe (together with a native proofreader) but I've left this off of my resumé because I thought it looked too diffuse. What do you guys think? I am bilingual but didn't learn Swedish from birth.
As you can hear I'm really grateful for all the help I've gotten from these boards in the past and I'm super excited to finally get to do what I love fulltime.
Thank you very much for the help, input, advice, criticism, jokes, or anything else!
[Edited at 2005-04-01 14:52] ▲ Collapse
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Antje Harder 
Sweden
Local time: 01:07
Swedish to German
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| Networking at a Swedish conference... | Mar 31, 2005 |
Hej Larissa,
I see from your profile that you are located in the Stockholm area. That's not far from Uppsala where this year's conference of SFÖ (Sveriges Facköversättarförening) is going to be held at the end of April.
"Företagande och Marknadsföring" is one of the topics that will be dealt with - it might be a good idea to participate? It's a perfect occasion to meet fellow translators.
You might wan... See more Hej Larissa,
I see from your profile that you are located in the Stockholm area. That's not far from Uppsala where this year's conference of SFÖ (Sveriges Facköversättarförening) is going to be held at the end of April.
"Företagande och Marknadsföring" is one of the topics that will be dealt with - it might be a good idea to participate? It's a perfect occasion to meet fellow translators.
You might want to check out SFÖ's website: http://www.sfoe.se
Lycka till and best regards from Lund
Antje ▲ Collapse
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Larissa Ekonoja
Sweden
Local time: 01:07
Swedish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | SFÖ Conference | Mar 31, 2005 |
Thank you Antje!
I just registered -- the conference looks very useful. What timing! I'm sure that everyone has gone through the same situation that I am in so I am sure the seminars will be very helpful.
Once again, thank you for the tip. I can't wait to meet more translators -- there must be a wealth of experience waiting to be had.
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Nicole Maina
Italy
Local time: 01:07
German to Italian
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| propose a powwow in your area! | Mar 31, 2005 |
Larissa Ekonoja wrote: I can't wait to meet more translators -- there must be a wealth of experience waiting to be had.
hello larissa,
of course this meeting will be of great help to you, but if you want to have something more informal and relaxed, make new friends, build up a network to share jobs and resources, swap informations about customers, prices, habits, suggestions... and have a lot of fun: propose a powwow!
it helped me a lot, and it's a great way to socialize when you feel lonely after days and days working in front of your computer, talking to your cat...
(if you are not thinking about becoming platinum, ask someone to propose one and organize it together, or get ID verified).
hope this helps
good luck!
nicole
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| some suggestions | Mar 31, 2005 |
Hi there,
A couple of suggestions:
-=CV=-
First of all there is a grammatical error in your CV. It should read "Introduced aN exclusive..." under corporate experience.
I would also suggest including your PC, software and internet connection information in your CV (which formats you can handle files in, do you have a Mac?, do you have broadband? If so what speed? *do you use a CAT tool*?)
Also, I personally prefer to have educatio... See more Hi there,
A couple of suggestions:
-=CV=-
First of all there is a grammatical error in your CV. It should read "Introduced aN exclusive..." under corporate experience.
I would also suggest including your PC, software and internet connection information in your CV (which formats you can handle files in, do you have a Mac?, do you have broadband? If so what speed? *do you use a CAT tool*?)
Also, I personally prefer to have education after experience/fields of specialisation...but that's me.
-=Profile=-
Even though you have used italics to break up your profile, to my eye it's very much one piece of text that looks too hard to read.
Certainly if I wanted to find something specific I would have a lot of trouble doing it. I would suggest using colors, bold text, increasing font size and NOT using italics to separate different sections and sub-sections in your profile. This has been discussed before and many people feel italics is a link to something and get frustrated when they realise it isn't.
I think a really good example of a colourful, well-broken up profile is: http://www.proz.com/?sp=partprof&eid_s=74392
I hope Alex doesn't mind my posting that!
In that kind of profile, finding information you are specifically interested in is a doddle.
-=Finding customers=-
Imho someone with your background should have little problem finding customers. Getting more Kudoz points, platinum membership, improving your profile + CV will help you win more jobs on Proz and get contacted directly via your profile. With platinum membership comes access to the Blueboard which shows you a large number of translation agencies and their payment practices...you can then locate them on the web and send them your CV.
As for direct clients, simply send them a CV and covering letter by post.
HTH
[Edited at 2005-03-31 13:48] ▲ Collapse
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| web site and SFÖ | Mar 31, 2005 |
Hi Larissa!
To find direct customers I recommend you to set up a web site. I have found several good customers this way.
Another good way of finding customers, bureaus and colleagues mainly, is to join SFÖ not only for the conference but also as a member. This gives you access to sfoe_debatt where jobs are announced every now and then. Right now I am working on a 60 000 word job, that I got by answering a posting there. You will also get a profile in the member data b... See more Hi Larissa!
To find direct customers I recommend you to set up a web site. I have found several good customers this way.
Another good way of finding customers, bureaus and colleagues mainly, is to join SFÖ not only for the conference but also as a member. This gives you access to sfoe_debatt where jobs are announced every now and then. Right now I am working on a 60 000 word job, that I got by answering a posting there. You will also get a profile in the member data base where quite a few clients look for translators.
Yes, you might find a lot of jobs on ProZ by going Platinum, but most of them will be paid very poorly.
See you in Uppsala!
Eva ▲ Collapse
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Larissa Ekonoja
Sweden
Local time: 01:07
Swedish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Great suggestions! | Apr 1, 2005 |
Hello all and happy Friday!
Konstantin Kisin wrote:
I would also suggest including your PC, software and internet connection information in your CV (which formats you can handle files in, do you have a Mac?, do you have broadband? If so what speed? *do you use a CAT tool*?)
Also, I personally prefer to have education after experience/fields of specialisation...but that's me.
First, thank you Konstantin for your helpful suggestions. I didn't realize how important a technology summary is but I'll definitely include this. I moved around the education section and agree that it looks better, thanks for the suggestion.
Even though you have used italics to break up your profile, to my eye it's very much one piece of text that looks too hard to read. I think a really good example of a colourful, well-broken up profile is: http://www.proz.com/?sp=partprof&eid_s=74392
I have to agree that the italics aren't easy to read. Thanks for a better suggestion. Personally I thought your profile was also pretty well done!
Eva Gustavsson wrote:
Another good way of finding customers, bureaus and colleagues mainly, is to join SFÖ not only for the conference but also as a member. This gives you access to sfoe_debatt where jobs are announced every now and then. Right now I am working on a 60 000 word job, that I got by answering a posting there. You will also get a profile in the member data base where quite a few clients look for translators.
SFÖ seems very highly recommended and I'll definitely join, especially after hearing that some jobs are posted there as well. Thank you for the tip and the recommendation to SFÖ, I was going to wait but now I won't!
Yes, you might find a lot of jobs on ProZ.com by going Platinum, but most of them will be paid very poorly.
Is this because they come through bureaus?
Does anyone have experience finding companies (not translation) in need of translation services in your local / national area? Is this worth the time and effort to contact the companies, and if so how did you determine who to contact and how? (I really dislike trying to sell myself to strangers!!!!)
Once again, thanks for the help and tips!
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