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Has anyone heard of companies giving tests to potential translators before they employ them?
Thread poster: Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Ireland
English to Irish
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Jan 20, 2019



 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
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Yes Jan 20, 2019

I’ve heard of not only tests but full exams done by in-house staff or by external companies (just like some international organizations).

P.S. The term "employ" led me to understand that you meant working in-house...

[Edited at 2019-01-20 14:21 GMT]


Samuel Murray
Morano El-Kholy
IrinaN
 
Fiona Grace Peterson
Fiona Grace Peterson  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 08:34
Italian to English
Yes Jan 20, 2019

It's common practice. Some translators are happy to do them, others aren't. With all the inept translators on the market, I think an intelligently designed short test is a fair and justified means of testing the abilities of someone whose work you are not familiar with. Others disagree and say other information, such as that in our profile, website or whatever should suffice. It's up to the individual to decide where they stand.

Cetacea
Samuel Murray
Dan Lucas
ahartje
Morano El-Kholy
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Colleen Roach, PhD
 
Anton Konashenok
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Definitely Jan 20, 2019

In fact, it's often the only reasonable way for the company to judge a candidate. It's especially true in subject fields where good translators are very few and far between.

Samuel Murray
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Barbara Carrara
conejo
Melanie Meyer
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
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English to Afrikaans
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Yes Jan 20, 2019

Roisin Ni Cheallaigh wrote:
Has anyone heard of companies giving tests to potential translators before they employ them?


Yes. The reason for this is that having a translation degree or diploma is no guarantee that the candidate can actually translate in a real-world environment. When someone studies translation and performs translations during their studies, they're usually translating for a teacher (with the expectation that the teacher will tell them what they're doing wrong), and not for an end-client (who is often not an expert at translation), so not all "qualified" translators know how to deal with non-classroom type of translation issues. Also, an experienced translator can often "see" if a candidate is either an inexperienced, brand new translator or a translator with at least some real-world experience under his belt, by evaluating a test.

When you say "employ", do you mean companies wanting to employ translators as full-time, in-house staff, or are you referring to the types of tests that agencies send freelance translators regularly or semi-regularly?


Jorge Payan
 
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Ireland
English to Irish
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TOPIC STARTER
Has anyone heard of companies giving tests to potential translators before they employ them? Jan 20, 2019

When I say employ I mean as freelance translators.
The majority of companies that I have dealt with don't give translators tests.
They put their faith in my translation standard, that is why I found it unusual.


 
DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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99.9% po-co Jan 20, 2019

Not sure about foreign agencies, yet in the ex-USSR unfair middlemen often abuse "free tests" practice, chopping real (fully paid!) projects into "free" 1000-5000-word tests. As far as many decent translators are but poor businessmen, they don't assess the risks, nor negotiate at least a reduced price. There're always newbies, naive, and needy...
Actually a portfolio (a couple of short related samples) or a quick video interview should do to prove one's proficiency.

D
... See more
Not sure about foreign agencies, yet in the ex-USSR unfair middlemen often abuse "free tests" practice, chopping real (fully paid!) projects into "free" 1000-5000-word tests. As far as many decent translators are but poor businessmen, they don't assess the risks, nor negotiate at least a reduced price. There're always newbies, naive, and needy...
Actually a portfolio (a couple of short related samples) or a quick video interview should do to prove one's proficiency.

Did you ever see a painter doing a "free test" portrait, a baker offering a "free test" buns and rolls, a dentists doing a "free test" tooth filling, or anything worthy for free? I still reject such "neverending free tests", because it's merely a white-collar fraud.

An ID? A diploma? A reference? A free general test? A free specialized test? A free test for every agency and their clients? Just gimme a break! Once I rejected another "free tests" pack and found the first local direct client, securing my position at the market and diversifying the income as an interpreter too--and never regretted.

By the way: How middleman could prove their vocational fitness, credentials, and trustworthiness--ability to find enough jobs and pay good rates timely, I wonder?
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Matthias Brombach
Vladimir Morozov
 
Anton Konashenok
Anton Konashenok  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
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French to English
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Tests can do a lot more than diplomas and CVs Jan 20, 2019

They put their faith in my translation standard, that is why I found it unusual.


A test can be used to judge many aspects beyond the standard. For example, a translator may have 20 years of professional experience and own several hundred dictionaries, but if he has a purely humanitarian mindset, he is bound to make blunders in technical texts because he would lack the engineering hunch needed to get the correct meaning of outwardly ambiguous passages. This is especially true for sloppily written source texts. Even experience within the same industry may not always be transferable to a new project. Some KudoZ questions (and, alas, some answers, too) are a proof of that.

[Edited at 2019-01-20 12:19 GMT]


Vesa Korhonen
Claudio Porcellana (X)
Jorge Payan
Chris Foster
B D Finch
Rytis Gedvilas
 
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Roisin Ni Cheallaigh (X)
Ireland
English to Irish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
has anyone heard of companies giving tests to potential translators before employing them? Jan 20, 2019

A company in Portugal didn't tell me that:
1. That it was an unpaid translation.
2 I found that out after I sent an invoice for payment to them.


[Edited at 2019-01-20 12:58 GMT]


Tom in London
 
Samuel Murray
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Netherlands
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English to Afrikaans
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Yes, I suppose the word "test" can imply that it is unpaid Jan 20, 2019

Roisin Ni Cheallaigh wrote:
A company in Portugal didn't tell me that:
1. That it was an unpaid translation.
2. I found that out after I sent an invoice for payment to them.


I suspect some people in the translation industry are so used to tests being unpaid that it would not occur to them to specify that a test is unpaid, if it was already specified as a "test". It is not unlikely that such a thing had happened to you.

You should ask yourself if you are willing to let this misunderstanding slide, or if you are going to insist that work is paid unless specifically indicated as unpaid.

Not all translations tests are unpaid. Several agencies have given me paid tests (sometimes they pay less than ordinary work, but sometimes they pay the same as ordinary work). The majority of "tests" from agencies that I receive are unpaid, however, and I personally always assume a test is unpaid if it is called a "test" and if the e-mail doesn't mention any payment for it.

I'm not sure if ProZ.com would consider this a "paid" or an "unpaid" translation, for Blue Board purposes, if it was never explicitly said in any e-mails that the test was going to be unpaid.


[Edited at 2019-01-20 15:38 GMT]


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
MK2010
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United States
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Think of the test as an audition Jan 20, 2019

They want to verify your skills and make sure you're a good fit. Nothing wrong with that. I've landed most of my biggest clients through a short translation test. And of course, those hoping to be freelancers with local or international government agencies can expect a whole battery of tests.

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
IrinaN
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
finnword1
finnword1
United States
Local time: 03:34
English to Finnish
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Sometimes Jan 20, 2019

If a translation company has a good review on Blue Board and a presentable website, I don't mind a short test. Someone once wanted a list of dictionaries and other resources that I may have used for the test. Has anybody heard of such a request? To me it is like asking what kind of chain a lumberjack is using in his chain saw, or a paint brush by a painter.

 
Joseph Tein
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Spanish to English
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YES - it's the responsible thing to do. Jan 20, 2019

Any serious/responsible translation company would and should ask people to take a brief test, because what a translator writes in her/his profile proves nothing; people can say anything they want and still be poor translators. There's nothing wrong with asking you to take a brief unpaid test (maybe 500 words or so) to see what you're capable of. I have much more respect for companies that want me to take a test before they'll start sending me work.

Another company just asked me to
... See more
Any serious/responsible translation company would and should ask people to take a brief test, because what a translator writes in her/his profile proves nothing; people can say anything they want and still be poor translators. There's nothing wrong with asking you to take a brief unpaid test (maybe 500 words or so) to see what you're capable of. I have much more respect for companies that want me to take a test before they'll start sending me work.

Another company just asked me to send a copy of prior work (minus identifying information); I think that's also an appropriate way of checking someone's quality. The two companies that send me most of my work both asked me to take a test before deciding to trust me with their projects (and now I get to evaluate other linguists' tests!). It makes complete sense.
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IrinaN
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
Slobodan Kozarčić
Slobodan Kozarčić  Identity Verified
Serbia
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Member (2016)
English to Serbian
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It's a common practice Jan 21, 2019



[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:24 GMT]

Although I don' like it.
Maybe we should ask agencies to test pay us a small sum without us doing any job for them in return?

[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:25 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:27 GMT]


Robert Rietvelt
 
Robert Rietvelt
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Spanish to Dutch
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Agree Jan 21, 2019

Slobodan Kozarčić wrote:



[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:24 GMT]

Although I don' like it.
Maybe we should ask agencies to test pay us a small sum without us doing any job for them in return?

[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:25 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-01-21 00:27 GMT]


Why not? Trust in this case is a 2-way street. They want to know my abilities as translator, and I want to know their professionality as company. Therefore I always charge them for a test. Only seems fair.

[Edited at 2019-01-21 10:13 GMT]


Tom in London
Slobodan Kozarčić
Angie Garbarino
 
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Has anyone heard of companies giving tests to potential translators before they employ them?







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