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ANGRY at agency for excessive testing requirement Thread poster: AAAmedical
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AAAmedical 
Belgium
Local time: 14:58
English to Dutch
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Do agencies have the right to treat us as sh....?
I was contacted by an agency which was looking for a good (makes me laugh???!!!) medical translator. They contacted me directly for a future job but they asked me (by the way) to perform a LITTLE test translation of a 1000 words. It was a very technical text so it would have taken me a day or so to do their little test.
I answered very politely that I thought this was a bit too much and that I could provide them with samples... See more Do agencies have the right to treat us as sh....?
I was contacted by an agency which was looking for a good (makes me laugh???!!!) medical translator. They contacted me directly for a future job but they asked me (by the way) to perform a LITTLE test translation of a 1000 words. It was a very technical text so it would have taken me a day or so to do their little test.
I answered very politely that I thought this was a bit too much and that I could provide them with samples of my work and references.
Guess what... they were angry. How do I dare to put my conditions when there were so many good translators out there. Sure there are so they won\'t have any problem to find one but not me.
Anyway, I know my story does not help anybody but I just had to tell it...
Have a nice day everybody
Ann
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BelkisDV
United States
Local time: 08:58
Spanish to English
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| You did the right thing | Jun 5, 2002 |
When someone asks me my policy on samples I tell them I will provide them with a sample not to exceed 250 words, or previous samples that I have on file. Those people wanted you to do that job so they wouldn\'t have to pay you. I had one of those recently and I knew what they were doing but I did the translation JUST IN CASE. Never heard from them again.
Don\'t feel bad, they\'re the ones who should be ashamed of themselves.
Belkis
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Maria Asis
Spain
Local time: 14:58
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
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| A similar posting in the Italian forum... | Jun 5, 2002 |
Hi!
Check with Bruno and his last Italian post 
It seems to me...
Ma. José
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Maria Asis
Spain
Local time: 14:58
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
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Egmont
Spain
Local time: 14:58
Afrikaans to Spanish
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You are right!
Don\'t give up!
[addsig]
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Stephen Franke
United States
Local time: 05:58
English to Arabic
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| You didn't lose anything with that loser firm | Jun 5, 2002 |
Greetings.
IMPO, you didn\'t lose anything with that loser firm.
Rather than flail around with doing even a short test, offer to provide either samples of (releasable) products or references to some of your satisfied customers.
When asked to take a transaltion test, you might ask the requestor for details about (1) who will do the examining and grading of your test product and (2) if that assessment is also being done for free.
... See more Greetings.
IMPO, you didn\'t lose anything with that loser firm.
Rather than flail around with doing even a short test, offer to provide either samples of (releasable) products or references to some of your satisfied customers.
When asked to take a transaltion test, you might ask the requestor for details about (1) who will do the examining and grading of your test product and (2) if that assessment is also being done for free.
HTH.
Good luck and success with dealing with bona fide language services firms in future.
Regards,
S. H. Franke ▲ Collapse
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Nathalie M. Girard, ALHC (X)
English to French
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| You certainly did the right thing! | Jun 5, 2002 |
I would never accept to do a 1,000 word unpaid test translation.
There are a few ways to go about handling these kinds of requests:
1) You can simply translate about 250-300 words, cross out the rest and advise them that you only provide a max. of 300 words for a free translation test.
2) You can proceed as you did: Offer samples that you already have in a similar field.
If it\'s extremely technical and they wan... See more I would never accept to do a 1,000 word unpaid test translation.
There are a few ways to go about handling these kinds of requests:
1) You can simply translate about 250-300 words, cross out the rest and advise them that you only provide a max. of 300 words for a free translation test.
2) You can proceed as you did: Offer samples that you already have in a similar field.
If it\'s extremely technical and they want to make sure that you can handle their kind of work (if this is there explanation to give out 1,000 word test), then you can reply that in this case, they should pay you for it.
It\'s money well invested for them if they find a great translator out of it - and it holds true for the reverse... it could avoid them serious trouble if the work is not up to the technical standards in that field.
Beware, there are a lot of crooks out there who want nothing but make an easy buck on our backs.
Have a great day!
Nathalie ▲ Collapse
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| Hi, AAA Medical... | Jun 5, 2002 |
I think a translator should never accept doing a test over 250-300 words.
1000 words? No way!
Would you mind telling us what country is that agency located in?
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| I also don't do long test translations | Jun 5, 2002 |
This has been an ongoing discussion in the union and all the translators that reported said that they had never gotten work from test translations. I have never gotten work from them either. This just happened with a company on ProZ who contacted my about work. I sent them a sample in the subject area. They responded with a long test; I wrote back that I had sent in a sample that was actually more difficult; they never responded. I have since gotten very bad reports about this agency. I agree:... See more This has been an ongoing discussion in the union and all the translators that reported said that they had never gotten work from test translations. I have never gotten work from them either. This just happened with a company on ProZ who contacted my about work. I sent them a sample in the subject area. They responded with a long test; I wrote back that I had sent in a sample that was actually more difficult; they never responded. I have since gotten very bad reports about this agency. I agree: don\'t do long tests. ▲ Collapse
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AAAmedical
Belgium
Local time: 14:58
English to Dutch
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks to everybody for their supportive reaction. I was not the only one being contacted by this \'agency\'. I guess they wanted to send out a lot of DIFFERENT \'test\' translations to end up with a real translation.
Ann
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| 1000 words is at least three times too much | Jun 8, 2002 |
Of course you did the right thing. What can you expect from such abusive behavior?
Bon courage,
Donostia 
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Nulli
Local time: 14:58
English to German
I just wanted to mention that I find it rude and unfair to call this agency a \"loser firm\" or to put the term agency in quotes when referring to them.
Perhaps 1000 words is too much for a free test, but that does not give you the right to guess that they send out lots of different tests in order to get a whole translation for free.
Nulli
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Trudy Peters
United States
Local time: 08:58
German to English
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Do you work for that \"agency?\"
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Oleg Osipov
Russian Federation
Local time: 15:58
English to Russian
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Do them guys from the agencies cannot do without tests or what?!
What is the reason? Do they have a special board to evaluate sample translations? If they do, why don\'t they translate themselves?
Just wondering.
Thank you,
Stepan
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Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 14:58
Italian to English
In memoriam | 100-200 words tells you all you need to know about a translator | Jun 26, 2002 |
I do short translation tests for new customers once in a while but more frequently, I need to evaluate translators I don\'t know for specialist IT>EN food and wine projects.
If the prospective translator has no published work to point me at (books, articles, websites and so on), I will send a passage of 100-250 - carefully chosen - words as an unpaid test.
It is usually obvious from the first couple of sentences whether the candidate is going to be usef... See more I do short translation tests for new customers once in a while but more frequently, I need to evaluate translators I don\'t know for specialist IT>EN food and wine projects.
If the prospective translator has no published work to point me at (books, articles, websites and so on), I will send a passage of 100-250 - carefully chosen - words as an unpaid test.
It is usually obvious from the first couple of sentences whether the candidate is going to be useful. I see no point whatsoever in insisting on longer tests, which are a waste of everybody\'s time.
I use test translations that I have already tackled myself because I want to see how the candidate handles the bits that I found tricky.
FWIW
Giles ▲ Collapse
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