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Happy Friday! For today's quick post, we wanted to talk about the lovely colleagues we hire as contractors for projects every week. We recently realized that they have many things in common. The one that stands out the most (in addition to excellent language skills, of course) is that the vast majority of them are active in their translator and interpreter associations or do some other sort of volunteer work.
It's not that we specifically look for colleagues with volunteer experience or that it's a requirement at all, but we tend to naturally gravitate towards those linguists who not only want to earn a good living, but who also want to give back to their communities and to the world. We've both always done a lot of pro bono work ourselves, and we appreciate others who do as well. Going good can also be good for you! We think it says something very powerful about a linguist when she or he is donating some time to make the world better for everyone.
We recently looked through our contractor list, and sure enough: pretty much all of them have been on the boards of their local translator/interpreter organization, and many have done lots of other pro bono work in other sectors.
We've worked with the same colleagues for years (sorry, not accepting applications), but if we were looking for say, someone, to translate something from English into Romanian, and we can think of two translators for that language pair (we actually can!), and all other things being equal, we'd probably pick the one translator who is more active in the industry. It also helps that of course those linguists who are more active in the industry (speak: pro bono) are more visible, which makes it easier for us to remember them.
What do you think, dear colleagues? If you'd like to chime in, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend.
1 comments:
On a bit of a different note, perhaps, but I always try to make new, underemployed or stagnant translators realize that pro bono translation can fill out your calendar — with interesting and meaningful work to boot — and get you valuable experience and referrals without having to lower your rates for commercial clients. Sadly, in most cases they don't get it.
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