| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Big jobs that never come your way... Thread poster: Heinrich Pesch
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Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 10:54
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER | One step further | Aug 29, 2006 |
Some agencies/individuals are even smarter than the scenrio you have painted, Heinrich. Here is what happened to me twice (the second time I refused to play ball with them).
One Israel-based agency/individual advertised a job which required a 300 word test to be done. I promptly applied with the completed test.
A day or two later, I recieved a large zipped file from the agency/individual asking me very politely whether I would be kind enough to rate the translations don... See more Some agencies/individuals are even smarter than the scenrio you have painted, Heinrich. Here is what happened to me twice (the second time I refused to play ball with them).
One Israel-based agency/individual advertised a job which required a 300 word test to be done. I promptly applied with the completed test.
A day or two later, I recieved a large zipped file from the agency/individual asking me very politely whether I would be kind enough to rate the translations done by the other respondents to this test on a scale of 1 to 10. This, so said the advertiser, was not mandatory, but would be highly appreciated.
I was curious as to what the other translators had done, so I opened the zipped files and performed the rating and sent the results to the advertiser. I would have spent more than half a day in all this.
And that was the last I heard of this advertiser.
The agency, however, had the temerity to repeat the modus operandi once again on this very web site a couple of months later.
Now this is what I guess went on behind the scenes.
1. The individual/agency had come to know of a large project in a language pair in which it had no competency (English-Hindi in this case).
2. To get this job, passing a test was mandatory.
3. So it advertised this job as its own and send the test material to the translators who responded.
4. Since it had no competency to evaluate the test responses, it once again sent the test responses to the translators who had responded, to get them rated.
5. Using the rating provided by the translators, it chose the best test translation and send it to the original job advertiser and quoted the lowest translator's rate it had received.
6. I don't know whether the individual/agency got the job on the basis of this trickery, but if it did, it probably got the translation done by the lowest quoter and got it edited by the highest rated translator.
In sum, it would have succeeded in getting a job done in a language pair in which it had absolutely no competency, at rock bottom rates and made a neat profit to itself in the bargain!
[Edited at 2006-08-29 07:01] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Interesting initiative by graphic designers.... | Aug 29, 2006 |
Following the post on the abuse of EU tender procedures and this one, I wanted to share an interesting initiative I came across recently
http://www.no-spec.com/
To me, a translation test is akin to spec work for designers, so why shouldn't translators jump on the "no spec" bandwagon? Or maybe we need our own "no-test" initiative.
Best regards,
Sara
[Edited at 20... See more Following the post on the abuse of EU tender procedures and this one, I wanted to share an interesting initiative I came across recently
http://www.no-spec.com/
To me, a translation test is akin to spec work for designers, so why shouldn't translators jump on the "no spec" bandwagon? Or maybe we need our own "no-test" initiative.
Best regards,
Sara
[Edited at 2006-08-29 06:13] ▲ Collapse
| | | | sylvie malich (X)
Germany
Local time: 07:24
German to English
Sara Freitas-Maltaverne wrote:
To me, a translation test is akin to spec work for designers, so why shouldn't translators jump on the "no spec" bandwagon? Or maybe we need our own "no-test" initiative.
Best regards,
Sara
[Edited at 2006-08-29 06:13]
Sorry to burst your bubble, but a spec takes weeks, sometimes months and often a team of designers that work overtime to prepare. I have a friend who still works as a graphic designer and I really feel for her when she looses weekends and money to a spec that doesn't pan out to a concrete job.
A translation test of 250 words and maybe an hour of work is no comparison. That said, I haven't done a translation test in years and still have plenty of work. As far as I'm concerned refusing to do a free test is not an extraordinary gesture.
sylvie
| | | | | Spec work and translation tests not the same, but comparable. | Aug 29, 2006 |
Don't worry, there's no bubble to burst.
Of course, spec work on large projects often represents a time investment that goes far beyond the typical translation test.
Designing a logo on spec, however, is pretty common and probably doesn't take very long. I think it could be compared to short translation tests.
I just wanted to share the initiative because I thought that parts of it might apply to translators.
Like many translators, I no longer ... See more Don't worry, there's no bubble to burst.
Of course, spec work on large projects often represents a time investment that goes far beyond the typical translation test.
Designing a logo on spec, however, is pretty common and probably doesn't take very long. I think it could be compared to short translation tests.
I just wanted to share the initiative because I thought that parts of it might apply to translators.
Like many translators, I no longer do unpaid tests except in very specific circumstances (existing clients, "real" projects). What I thought was interesting with the designers' initiative was the effort to educate the market (clients) about how this practice is a disservice to clients and freelancers.
Best regards,
Sara ▲ Collapse
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| How would you employ translators? | Aug 29, 2006 |
If you needed to employ some translators for a job you were being given and needed help with, how would you do it? How does one choose translators for a number of language pairs that you are not familiar with?
I think it is good to put yourself in the position of an agency and work out how you would solve the problems of sorting the good from the inadequate translators or proofreaders on a daily basis, and if you can figure out a good system then maybe you can branch out and sell yo... See more If you needed to employ some translators for a job you were being given and needed help with, how would you do it? How does one choose translators for a number of language pairs that you are not familiar with?
I think it is good to put yourself in the position of an agency and work out how you would solve the problems of sorting the good from the inadequate translators or proofreaders on a daily basis, and if you can figure out a good system then maybe you can branch out and sell your system to agencies.
Trevor ▲ Collapse
| | | | NMR (X)
France
Local time: 07:24
French to Dutch
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| Thanks Heinrich | Aug 29, 2006 |
I didn't see that thread. Very interesting, I'm not the only one who noticed this kind of abuse. Maybe that there is a real problem in some "exotic" language pairs such as English-Finnish or French-Dutch! In each case I think that we must be aware that our cv doesn't go into a filing cabinet, but has a commercial value and can be used, re-used, passed on to subsidiaries of the translation company and sold in case of a merger.
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