| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | How to find the largest translation agencies Thread poster: Pavel Zalutski
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James_xia wrote: Smaller agencies tend to offer more competitive rates. 
| | | | Rita Pang 
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Pavel Zalutski wrote:
Large agencies have larger translator pool and sometimes they even post jobs on their internal job boards and sometimes translators even bid for them. So yes, large agencies sometimes pay lower rates. Often they do not have close relationships with translators; often they send out mass email offers.
With that said, large agencies also sometimes pay high rates and often pay decent rates. They are sometimes in a tight situation needing a translator urgently, and there's always a chance to negotiate a higher rate with them. As a translator you can do many things when to break through their impersonal armor and have project managers do exceptions for you by offering you exclusive jobs and giving you higher rates: be it great customer service, or trying to make relationships more personal, or just negotiating and using your power of persuasion.
Large agencies are not bad to work for.
Yes, I agree, primarily if you are starting out. The large agencies which are GOOD usually pays, and on time (I'd imagine this is a prime concern for everyone, especially for a newcomer to the industry - not knowing how the whole thing works, how to haggle for time etc etc), that being said, however, the whole concept of job board irks me. I currently work for one such agency where jobs are posted on a first-come-first-serve basis. I am still with them as they do have a few perks, one of which include weekly payout. Other than that however, reiterating most of what's been said above, in the long run you'd definitely want to target a smaller-size agency. You are treated like a real human being, and most importantly, a collaborator or a service provider, instead of an "employee".
Terms like bidding seriously tells you a lot about the agency.
There's also been mentions of smaller agencies having the tendency to pay more- well, yes and no. In my experience, most of the time they are NOT able to pay more than the large agencies I work with, but they usually wouldn't haggle with me (large agencies have a tendency to do that as they work with a lot more vendors) and wouldn't have to put up with a 30-45 days of a waiting period.
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Pavel, if what you are after is a steady flow of jobs at decent rates, then there are also other ways than working with big agencies. It is often a matter of how many 'boutique' (or just small) agencies you know, whether their workload tends to fit your profile, whether they have a steady turnover themselves, basically a game of variables. To reach multiple small agencies, or even to reach them at all, you need a presence: a quality website, a good profile in directories, a nice brochure and a s... See more Pavel, if what you are after is a steady flow of jobs at decent rates, then there are also other ways than working with big agencies. It is often a matter of how many 'boutique' (or just small) agencies you know, whether their workload tends to fit your profile, whether they have a steady turnover themselves, basically a game of variables. To reach multiple small agencies, or even to reach them at all, you need a presence: a quality website, a good profile in directories, a nice brochure and a strong CV to show to your potential clients.
For example, my own workload last year featured the largest agencies from the local market only to a very little extent, and while a significant chunk of my income did come from larger players, those were still relatively small, and in any case I'm pretty sure they don't hire more than 10 people. There are probably larger employers in Poland's language industry, but a large agency is typically defined on the strength of its brand, basing on some sort of approximate turnover it casts the impression of having. Or actually has, if you have the data to tell (you mostly don't, although it should be possible to check out their public financial statements at the commercial court which handles their registry).
Here, you'd normally expect the larger players to have a more defined QA chain with professional proofreaders and revisers and experts available for consultation. On the other hand, the rates would typically be rather poor unless you actually found one that still pays rush fees and actually gives you a rush assignment (as opposed to e.g. breaking the source into 10 pieces of 5 pages each, i.e. just below Poland's traditional urgency threshold, which is 6 pages). Whatever is said about them (which is actually not much), they probably look good on the CVs of those translators who are allowed to put them there. Working for them may be a good strategy for a new translator, before going completely freelance, working with direct clients, specialised/boutique agencies and so on. A solid base never hurt anybody.
Working for large agencies is probably less traumatising if you don't mind procedures, formalities and a lot of CAT usage, as well as large style guides, copious reference materials and other stuff I personally cringe at the thought of (although I actually love having a more experienced editor/reviser on the team) but some colleagues thrive on.
Also, if you're into localisation, you may have no choice and actually need to stick with large agencies.
Bottom line: If you're after a steady, secure flow of jobs, consider other ways of finding it (e.g. this little course, a good website, such as these guys can make etc.). If you prefer large agencies for other reasons, well, do whatever works for you!
[Edited at 2014-01-20 05:55 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-01-20 05:55 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Translation agencies | Mar 27, 2014 |
I think before selecting any translation agency, we need to see the testimonial of the company. What people are told about the agency. Then size,location,reputation,service, cost of agency.
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