Is there any standard for posting jobs? Thread poster: Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D.
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I would like to suggest, for the good of both vendors and translators, that confirmed data be required of those posting job offers on ProZ.
Here\'s an example:
http://www.proz.com/job/30398
A lowball price, plus a Yahoo address and no information on the vendor...that sets off the warning bells for those who have been in the game for awhile, but someone trying desperately... See more I would like to suggest, for the good of both vendors and translators, that confirmed data be required of those posting job offers on ProZ.
Here\'s an example:
http://www.proz.com/job/30398
A lowball price, plus a Yahoo address and no information on the vendor...that sets off the warning bells for those who have been in the game for awhile, but someone trying desperately to establish him/herself might bite.
Naturally such a job poster might be legit, but most legitimate businesspeople, whether agencies or other organizations which require translation, are happy to provide details such as addresses, name of the company, and even references if required. After all, they usually require it of the translators!
(Henry, any chance this is from a recently-discussed party? Smells like it could just be...)
[ This Message was edited by:on2003-01-09 00:19] ▲ Collapse
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Ralf Lemster 
Germany
Local time: 09:39
English to German
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| Job offers are a way to establish a contact... | Jan 9, 2003 |
...after which one needs to verify the identity and credentials of any unknown outsourcer.
I would subject any potential new client to the same \"due diligence\" - regardless of whether the contact was established via ProZ, e-mail contact, telephone call or other.
Of course ProZ.com could establish minimum requirements, but let\'s face it: there\'s no way to really verify details in a simple, fast and efficient way. (If someone out there knows how to che... See more ...after which one needs to verify the identity and credentials of any unknown outsourcer.
I would subject any potential new client to the same \"due diligence\" - regardless of whether the contact was established via ProZ, e-mail contact, telephone call or other.
Of course ProZ.com could establish minimum requirements, but let\'s face it: there\'s no way to really verify details in a simple, fast and efficient way. (If someone out there knows how to check the ID of a client on a different continent and/or in a different jurisdiction, within a matter of minutes, let\'s hear it...) Any sort of \"approval\" by ProZ would run the risk of a false sense of security, I\'m afraid. ▲ Collapse
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Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 09:39
English to German
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| Need job poster screening process | Jan 9, 2003 |
I may grasp what Ralf tries to convey, while I\'m strongly inclined to agree with Terry in that these \'anonymous\' job posters should be regarded \'hypocritical\' without giving us, potential bidders, any chance to know even their contact information or experiences that are inevitable for us to evaluate their credibility. In other words, they even don\'t clarify any basic information as a ProZ.com member, right? And they often just present unreasonably (or unbearably for us, translators) low ra... See more I may grasp what Ralf tries to convey, while I\'m strongly inclined to agree with Terry in that these \'anonymous\' job posters should be regarded \'hypocritical\' without giving us, potential bidders, any chance to know even their contact information or experiences that are inevitable for us to evaluate their credibility. In other words, they even don\'t clarify any basic information as a ProZ.com member, right? And they often just present unreasonably (or unbearably for us, translators) low rates and we never know how we could believe in their business manners.
Oh yes, I\'m skeptical on it as I once had two cases of troubles by accepting jobs from the posters here, although they were not necessarily anonymous on their profiles, they ran away with an astounding amount of our total payments after we completed and submitted projects in a qualified manner. I understand the beginner agencies in the translation business start with lower rates, while I never understand why they have to post jobs anonymously, almost as no ones, expecting for us to bid without any skepticism. Why don\'t they try to have their own ProZ.com profiles? Is it such a hard thing for them to put their basic contact information and expertise through it to get authentic credibility with their potential future cooperators? It\'s a matter of a few minutes for them to create a profile and it must make a big difference in the long run. I don\'t say they aren\'t trustful good parties over there (In fact, I have got acuainted with a few good agencies, thanks to the market place.)
However, meanwhile based upon my own terrible experinces and the fact above, I suggest that the ProZ.com would leverage a screening process for the job posters (bidders in that sense) to make this market place truly functional and valuable resource for everyone in this business. I regret I\'m not condident enough to accept any jobs from all anonymous job posters and am aware that I have less and less opportunities to bid for the recent months. ▲ Collapse
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Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 09:39
English to German
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What do you do if you\'re contacted by a unknown potential client, by e-mail, fax or phone?
Exactly. Even if you see all sorts of details, you want to know (i) if the identity is legitimate and (ii) once you have established/verified the identity, you want to know about their business behaviour. That\'s what payment lists such as TCR, PP, Zahlungspraxis (Germany) or the Blue Board are for. Even if you have all the details, that doesn\'t necessarily mean you should be doing b... See more What do you do if you\'re contacted by a unknown potential client, by e-mail, fax or phone?
Exactly. Even if you see all sorts of details, you want to know (i) if the identity is legitimate and (ii) once you have established/verified the identity, you want to know about their business behaviour. That\'s what payment lists such as TCR, PP, Zahlungspraxis (Germany) or the Blue Board are for. Even if you have all the details, that doesn\'t necessarily mean you should be doing business with that potential client. Neither does it mean you cannot bid on a job posted by someone who chose not to reveal all details - but I certainly wouldn\'t start work without that check.
What I\'m trying to say is this: it\'s everyone\'s personal responsibility to make sure they know who they\'re dealing with.
In addition to this, moderators are actively monitoring jobs posted, and are able to remove suspicious postings. If you note something that might be improper, I suggest you contact a moderator - probably the one looking after one of your primary language pairs. ▲ Collapse
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Carlos Moreno
Colombia
Local time: 02:39
English to Spanish
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| My suggestion | Jan 10, 2003 |
I suggest the moderators (or someone) screen the incoming jobs, only letting through those jobs posted by agencies which have sufficiently filled their profile.
Or perhaps the system will only allow agencies who have completed their profile to place job offers. I do not know how it can be implemented for individuals who are also agents, but there are many ways.
ProZ has done much for us translators, and this can be also done, which will benefit us all.
... See more I suggest the moderators (or someone) screen the incoming jobs, only letting through those jobs posted by agencies which have sufficiently filled their profile.
Or perhaps the system will only allow agencies who have completed their profile to place job offers. I do not know how it can be implemented for individuals who are also agents, but there are many ways.
ProZ has done much for us translators, and this can be also done, which will benefit us all.
I recently read in a TransPay thread that some colleagues \"lock\" their translated files with a password. This is very easy to do in Word or in Winzip and, if they want to see the file, they have to let me see the money!
[ This Message was edited by:on2003-01-10 01:10] ▲ Collapse
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| Not a few ProZ members were battered | Jan 10, 2003 |
I don\'t want to argue with anybody here, I\'m just interested in securing my own financial situation.
It was a few years back, when the community itself hadn\'t yet grown enough to be essentially called a real community, that not a few members including myself were seriouly battered financially by that one particular client who ran away with our huge outstanding payments. Safely mine wasn\'t so big, but some other members must have been devastated since we had the days and... See more I don\'t want to argue with anybody here, I\'m just interested in securing my own financial situation.
It was a few years back, when the community itself hadn\'t yet grown enough to be essentially called a real community, that not a few members including myself were seriouly battered financially by that one particular client who ran away with our huge outstanding payments. Safely mine wasn\'t so big, but some other members must have been devastated since we had the days and days of arguing how to solve the circumstance for months, both on this site and TCR list(which was just a mailing list at that time), even sending soliciting e-mails to the Utha\'s Chief Justice. After all no way to go, that\'s where we reached.
I definitely need to know the basic information when I consider for participating in the bidiing system on the ProZ job market place. Even when it\'s your own risk to accept an offer, you couldn\'t make any investigation unless you have the basic contact information of certain anonymous agency on a database like TCR list as stated in its Terms of Use. The Agency Blue Board system or some other sources may be different, but the former is limited to the Platinum members to which level I haven\'t decided to upgrade for some delicate reasons, so my chance to see the status isn\'t extensive, even though I\'m positively commenting my own experiences for the sake of other professionals.
My language is Japanese and most of the time I\'m only browsing at this website as a Japanese professional, while I assume the situation must be largely different from one langauge to another when you think about how some of the tools or opportunities ProZ.com provides us appeal to you. I registred here at the forming stage, while for recent months especially, in the case of Japanese, I can\'t see any merits for users for upgrading, except for KudoZ for which many other users are participating both as askers and answerers. If I\'m commenting, in my 5 years of working as a freelance translator, the only two cases of the troubles were from bidding at this market place. The fact only is worth positively considering.
In any case, I sincerely hope that every job poster, at least, dares spare time to set up their own ProZ profiles if they truly see any potential value in this job market place like everybody exchanges his/her card in every corner of the business scene(is it only in Japan?). Otherwise, I\'m afraid I would continue to refrain myself from relating to those parties.
Thank you for your attention.
[ This Message was edited by:on2003-01-10 16:15] ▲ Collapse
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gianfranco
Brazil
Local time: 04:39
Member (2001)
English to Italian
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| A two tier system could be the solution | Jan 13, 2003 |
I have read all comments and suggestions so far and I would like to contribute with a possible solution for all parties.
The Jobs area has often been controversial because some outsourcers do not wish to publish their full details, and that includes many perfectly legitimate businesses with all intention to behave according to the best practice.
Just one example: when they are recruiting real candidates for a real job which is not yet signed with their c... See more I have read all comments and suggestions so far and I would like to contribute with a possible solution for all parties.
The Jobs area has often been controversial because some outsourcers do not wish to publish their full details, and that includes many perfectly legitimate businesses with all intention to behave according to the best practice.
Just one example: when they are recruiting real candidates for a real job which is not yet signed with their client, but they are still bidding againsts other competitors.
I could mention some other legitimate cases, but this is not the right place to expand on that.
On the other hand, many translators (and I) may feel uneasy at bidding or contacting anonymous potential customers.
Possible solution:
Create a two tier system, where the Jobs area can be accessed by anybody, as it is now and also by REGISTERED USERS (R.U.).
The difference being that a R.U. has provided all its details to the site, and they have been checked.
When posting a Job offer, the R.U. may choose to publish or not their full details but the translators will know that they are a real business, with full details registered with ProZ.
Bids placed by R.U. may display a symbol aimed at providing a higher degree of confidence in the interested translators.
Bids placed by NOT R.U. and not providing any identify info may be treated with an extra level of caution.
NOTE:
the site may implement a similar registration scheme but still it will not guarantee the punctual payment or the best business behaviour.
It is only a possible solution to the problem of anonymity.
In other words, it would be almost the reverse of the current situation for translators.
Some of us publish their real name and some don\'t.
The agencies are free to decide, for each case, if they are happy to deal with anonymous bidders or rather with translators appearing on the marketplace with their real name.
The only difference is that the agencies may choose to register with the site even not having a ProZ profile and not publishing all their details in a job offer, on a case per case basis.
Gianfranco
[ This Message was edited by:on2003-01-13 13:12] ▲ Collapse
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RHELLER
United States
Local time: 01:39
French to English
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| Does this type of job ad even belong on Proz? | Mar 29, 2003 |
Job posting not translation - not even editing work - at ridiculous price!
Dear Colleagues:
I applied March 28 to \"English editing\" job.
First response I received:
\"We need several researchers to search Internet news portal and Search engine, collect industries news, write an abstract of the news, and save it to our online website.
The wage is base on the content contributed and adopted. it\'s about US$0.3 per... See more Job posting not translation - not even editing work - at ridiculous price!
Dear Colleagues:
I applied March 28 to \"English editing\" job.
First response I received:
\"We need several researchers to search Internet news portal and Search engine, collect industries news, write an abstract of the news, and save it to our online website.
The wage is base on the content contributed and adopted. it\'s about US$0.3 per piece.\"
I wrote back to verify wage (30 cents!!) - thought it was a typo.
Second response I received:
\"Yes, because the job is simply copy and paste the news. Need reading skill, not writing skill. We need human work
to replace some search engine work when search engine can not do it good enough.
The rate is just a tentative rate, we may change it base on the applicant\'s response, there are overwhelming response from china and india.\"
It took me a couple of minutes to get over the shock and amazement. I then quickly calculated the approximate amount of time that searching, reading, cutting and pasting would take and figured that it couldn\'t take less than five minutes.
This results in an hourly rate of $ 3.60. (math lovers, please correct me if I\'m wrong - I would love to be wrong).
The minimum wage in the United States is currently is $5.15/hour.
The amount of time applying and responding to this job ad was definitely not worth my time.
More importantly, does this type of ad even belong on this website?
This is neither translation work nor editing work.
I hope someone is listening.
Thanks,
Rita
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awilliams
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:39
Italian to English
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| you weren't the only one, Rita.. | Mar 29, 2003 |
Hi Rita,
Yes, I too enquired about the job and was given the 0.30 USD/piece price. There was some wording about such a price being suitable \"if you are a translator from a developing country\". It really is very low. Having visited their (many) websites, I can\'t see why they couldn\'t fork out some more money, what with all this hosting, translation and \"programme development\"..
In my book \"copy and paste the news\" doesn\'t have much to do with \"writing an abstract\", ... See more Hi Rita,
Yes, I too enquired about the job and was given the 0.30 USD/piece price. There was some wording about such a price being suitable \"if you are a translator from a developing country\". It really is very low. Having visited their (many) websites, I can\'t see why they couldn\'t fork out some more money, what with all this hosting, translation and \"programme development\"..
In my book \"copy and paste the news\" doesn\'t have much to do with \"writing an abstract\", either.
Unfortunately some sucker out there will go for it - and good luck to them.
A ▲ Collapse
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Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 09:39
English to German
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| Contact a moderator | Mar 29, 2003 |
Hi Rita and Amy,
From your description, I don\'t think this was an appropriate job to be posted here - the Job Posting Form clearly states:
Quote:Please refrain from posting job notices that do not specifically require the services of multilingual professionals.
I couldn\'t find it - would you please contact me through my profile with the exact URL?
Generally... See more Hi Rita and Amy,
From your description, I don\'t think this was an appropriate job to be posted here - the Job Posting Form clearly states:
Quote:Please refrain from posting job notices that do not specifically require the services of multilingual professionals.
I couldn\'t find it - would you please contact me through my profile with the exact URL?
Generally, if you see something like that, contact a moderator - either the moderator for the language pair concerned or one of the coordinators listed on the moderators\' list.
We try our best to spot and (if necessary) delete such postings, but we rely on your support to make sure none slips through.
TIA - best regards, Ralf ▲ Collapse
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RHELLER
United States
Local time: 01:39
French to English
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| Thanks, Ralf for listening | Mar 29, 2003 |
Thanks Ralf -
at least someone is listening.
I really like this website and have made a few good friends here!
Thanks to Amy too - at least I know I\'m not the only one who fell for an ad that sounded very respectable at the outset.
It just got worst and worst.
I will send any info I have to Ralf personally.
Rita
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