| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Ask Anything About How To Launch or Grow Your Translation Career Thread poster: Renvi Ulrich
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Renvi Ulrich 
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
SITE LOCALIZER
Hello fellow ProZians,
In this topic, I (and hopefully my colleagues that frequent this sub-forum) will try to answer all your questions on how to launch or grow your translation career, while staying happy and healthy in the process. If you have a question that you always wanted to ask but thought it didn't warrant a whole new topic, then you are at the right place.
In addition to answering questions, ev... See more Hello fellow ProZians,
In this topic, I (and hopefully my colleagues that frequent this sub-forum) will try to answer all your questions on how to launch or grow your translation career, while staying happy and healthy in the process. If you have a question that you always wanted to ask but thought it didn't warrant a whole new topic, then you are at the right place.
In addition to answering questions, every Monday 11AM (CET), I will post a few gems from my readings and experience, as well as thoughts on how to improve your career and wellbeing.
You have the floor!
[Edited at 2023-08-23 10:35 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 01:14
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Renvi Ulrich wrote:
...about how to start or grow your translation business.
When you say "translation business", do you mean a small agency or do you mean a freelancer?
| | | | Renvi Ulrich
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | Aimed for freelancers | Aug 22, 2023 |
Hi Samuel,
Good question. I believe agencies and freelancers both run a "translation business". However, I started this for freelancers mostly, even though tips here might be useful to those running small agencies as well.
I will edit the topic accordingly.
Thanks again
[Edited at 2023-08-22 15:24 GMT]
| | | | Barbara Carrara
Italy
Local time: 01:14
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Renvi Ulrich wrote:
...every Monday 11AM (CET), I will post a few gems from Dale Carnegie's book "How to Win Friends And Influence People", and share my thoughts on how you can use his suggestions to improve your career and wellbeing.
Hi, Renvi.
A few things I'd like you to expand on, please.
What is your involvement with D. Carnegie's book? Why would you promote his book and your thoughts on it? In what capacity will you be going to do that?
Where do you intend to post your 'gems' and thoughts every Monday morning? Do you have a blog you can share for those of us who may be interested? Or do you intend to post the above here, in the Forum section? I am asking because, depending on how much material you intend to post over how many Mondays, you may be using the Forum space as a self-promoting or book-promoting space, which (I seem to remember) wouldn't be in line with the site's rules.
Thank you.
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Prisca Deutsch
Neth. Antilles
Local time: 19:14
German to French
+ ...
Hello Renvi,
Thank you very much for opening this subject. It couldn't be more fitting. Since I passed my exam to become a translator with native languages french and german I haven't been working in the field. I work in tourism and run a hotel and dive shop. Now after several years I would like to get established in the field, but since I haven't been active, I don't have a lot of experience, it seems truly overwhelming to try to get a foot in the door. Everyone seems to expect years and ... See more Hello Renvi,
Thank you very much for opening this subject. It couldn't be more fitting. Since I passed my exam to become a translator with native languages french and german I haven't been working in the field. I work in tourism and run a hotel and dive shop. Now after several years I would like to get established in the field, but since I haven't been active, I don't have a lot of experience, it seems truly overwhelming to try to get a foot in the door. Everyone seems to expect years and years of experience. So my question, where to even start? Send my CV broadly out to agencies?
Thank you in advance for your answer and have a great evening,
Best regards,
Prisca Deutsch ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Carreer? Carreer? | Aug 22, 2023 |
Years ago my friend John and I used to laugh about Dale Carnegie's quaint old American book. Taking one of his hints about how to ingratiate yourself with people (by calling them by their first name at every available opportunity), we used to call each other John and Tom every 5 minutes.
I didn't derive anything else from his book. But we had lots of laughs.
[Edited at 2023-08-22 17:47 GMT]
| | | | Renvi Ulrich
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER
Barbara Carrara wrote:
What is your involvement with D. Carnegie's book? Why would you promote his book and your thoughts on it? In what capacity will you be going to do that?
Thank you for your pertinent remarks. My intention here is not to promote myself or a product. I have no ties with Dale C. and his book, apart from the fact that applying what I read in it greatly help me.
Thank you for drawing my attention to the forum's rules. I will adjust my first post and make my Monday Gems less about a book in particular. I will be sharing them mostly here and with time, maybe on other platforms.
This topic is the expression of my strong desire to share my experience and have other professionals joining me in helping those who need a hand in their career.
Comments on how best to approach this will always be welcome.
[Edited at 2023-08-23 09:09 GMT]
| | | | Renvi Ulrich
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER
Prisca Deutsch wrote:
Everyone seems to expect years and years of experience.
The situation you describe is a very frustrating one. I went through the same painful process when I first started. Let me share a bit of my experience with you. Off-course, no situations are identical. Please adapt to your circumstances.
You may be more experienced than you think: Unlike you, I did not hold a degree in translation when I first started, so I had a long way to go to convince my first client. However, I had a Master's Degree in Computers engineering and 10 years of experience as a software programmer, and wanted at that point to shift my career toward my passion for languages . That's what I emphasized on right at the beginning. Instead of presenting myself as a newbie, I introduced myself as a translator specialized in IT and Telecom (which I could prove). I see that you have years of experience in running a hotel. For a start, you can use that as an asset to convince clients to entrust you with work in the fields of travel, tourism, hospitality, lifestyle and the likes...
Properly complete your proz.com profile: Here are two links with tips:
http://www.proz.com/videos/tutorials%20on%20proz.com/224
http://www.proz.com/videos/tutorials%20on%20proz.com/388
Showcase your talent while helping others: I found it very helpful at the beginning to help other translators on the KudoZ forum. It boosted my confidence in my abilities, helped me gain credibility in the community, and put me in touch with some colleagues that played a key role in getting me started. As a plus, it gave me more visibility in the Proz.com search results (talking about visibility, you may also consider having a paid proz.com account. Feel free to investigate on the topic)
Dedication and resilience: In my case, I understood after a few weeks that I couldn't be a programmer and a translator at the same time. As I had some money aside to live for a few months without having to work intensively, I decided to dedicate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to the launching of my new career. I would use 2 hours a day to send my CV to agencies and apply to job offers, another two hours to handle pro bono translations or respond to Kudoz questions, and the rest of the time to research marketing tips and studying the industry.
After sending tens and tens of CVs, I started to receive responses from agencies. Then they made me pass lots of complicated tests. When successful, they would promise to contact me when an opportunity arises. In my case, six months passed after I started my job search, before I had my first big project: 30,000 words in the field of... Computers.
It's difficult to give you a complete answer in one post, but I hope this helps. I believe others here will also have suggestions. Please implement if you can, and feel free to let us know how it is going or ask for clarifications.
[Edited at 2023-08-23 09:14 GMT]
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Barbara Carrara
Italy
Local time: 01:14
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
| Proving my point | Aug 23, 2023 |
Hello again, Renvi.
Thanks for replying to my earlier queries.
Meanwhile, I see that you are already contravening your own intentions, by providing a long-winded reply to Prisca, outside of your planned Monday post. While I understand your reasons, with every new post asking you for tips here, you may be prompted to reply using this same space.
And if that is a taster of what's to come, you have proved my point.
That's why I would once again suggest you to explore... See more Hello again, Renvi.
Thanks for replying to my earlier queries.
Meanwhile, I see that you are already contravening your own intentions, by providing a long-winded reply to Prisca, outside of your planned Monday post. While I understand your reasons, with every new post asking you for tips here, you may be prompted to reply using this same space.
And if that is a taster of what's to come, you have proved my point.
That's why I would once again suggest you to explore avenues - e.g. blog, podcast, ProZ training session... - that are better suited to your intended purpose.
Thank you. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Renvi Ulrich
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | Thank you for the input | Aug 23, 2023 |
You are right when you suggest other venues to share this, which I am also considering. Thank you for your suggestions. However, they will come as additions, not substitutions. I will share more info on them in due time. I would have loved to have instant replies from an experienced peer when I needed them the most, and that's what I am trying to provide here, with the advantage that a lot more experienced professionals can share as well.
As for the format, I will post the gems on M... See more You are right when you suggest other venues to share this, which I am also considering. Thank you for your suggestions. However, they will come as additions, not substitutions. I will share more info on them in due time. I would have loved to have instant replies from an experienced peer when I needed them the most, and that's what I am trying to provide here, with the advantage that a lot more experienced professionals can share as well.
As for the format, I will post the gems on Mondays. However, when I am available, I will also give as much info as possible to those asking for it here, with the only intend to share and empower (like I did for Prisca, and hopefully, others will join in sharing with her as well).
Thanks again ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Renvi Ulrich wrote:
You are right when you suggest other venues to share this, which I am also considering. Thank you for your suggestions. However, they will come as additions, not substitutions. I will share more info on them in due time. I would have loved to have instant replies from an experienced peer when I needed them the most, and that's what I am trying to provide here, with the advantage that a lot more experienced professionals can share as well.
As for the format, I will post the gems on Mondays. However, when I am available, I will also give as much info as possible to those asking for it here, with the only intend to share and empower (like I did for Prisca, and hopefully, others will join in sharing with her as well).
Thanks again
I don't want to see any more Monday Gems.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 01:14
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Posting a regular column on the ProZ.com forum is not, to my knowledge, against the rules, unless you are using the forum to promote something that you have a financial interest in.
So, even though some regular readers of this forum may become upset if they see you regularly post a new thread, it's perfectly okay for you to do that. There are people here who feel that the forum should only be used for question-and-answer types of threads, but there is nothing in ProZ.com's forum ... See more Posting a regular column on the ProZ.com forum is not, to my knowledge, against the rules, unless you are using the forum to promote something that you have a financial interest in.
So, even though some regular readers of this forum may become upset if they see you regularly post a new thread, it's perfectly okay for you to do that. There are people here who feel that the forum should only be used for question-and-answer types of threads, but there is nothing in ProZ.com's forum rules that preclude you from starting a thread that simply states your opinion (or which provides advice to newbies) and inviting comments or questions about it.
That said, it may be better, also if you do post regularly, to re-use the same thread to post your Monday column, especially if you find that it gets very few responses. Most forum users will see your new post at the top of the list of messages every Monday even if it forms part of a previous thread. Only people who are subscribed to "new threads" will not get email notifications of subsequent Monday messages.
In addition, virtually "owning" a thread by regularly posting in the same thread and answering questions in your role as an expert is also perfectly permissible. There aren't many such threads on the forum, but there are a few (often in the format "ask me anything about X").
How successful such a thread would become would depend on how well you can resist the temptation to respond to trolls -- and unfortunately, trolling and posting wildly off-topic responses in threads hasn't been policed by the ProZ.com staff for over a decade now. Resist the feeling that you have a responsibility to reply to all messages, and reply only to those that respect the purpose of your thread.
One thing that is frowned upon is if you post a message whose main purpose is to drive traffic to your own website. Some columnists have tried such an approach in the past: they would regularly write something on their blog on their own website, and then post a link with a short description here in the forums. That kind of self-promotion will get you into trouble quickly, no matter how useful the content is.
FWIW, there was no reason for you to remove the name of Carnegie's book from your original post -- you did not violate any rules by making mention of it.
[Edited at 2023-08-23 11:10 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 02:14
Member
English to Turkish
| A man's gotta eat | Aug 23, 2023 |
I understand that a man's gotta eat, but peddling your 'Mastermind project' on Proz when this is clearly the domain of a certain individual and thereby muscling in on his territory/livelihood may not be taken very kindly. Just saying like...
| | | | | So much hostility... | Aug 23, 2023 |
Why? I understand this could be seen as a self-promoting "trick", but is Renvi breaking any rules here? This is the main question. Otherwise, you can just ignore his posts. Live and let live.
| | | | Renvi Ulrich
Cameroon
Local time: 00:14
Member
English to French
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER
Thank you for your insight and kind words. Very encouraging
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