Frustration and lack of translations

Cristiano Lima wrote:

Greetings,

My name is Cristiano, I do translations and interpreting from Russian and English into Portuguese since 2006, however I am starting to get really, but really frustrated with the huge decline of translations.

Brazil is known for being a country where almost no one speaks English, if we speak of Russian language, this number is even worse. In a city with 3 million of people you will find maybe 2 or 3 people who master Russian and Portuguese at the same time. However, since I renewed my signature at Proz, I did not get a single project. When I see a job offer, I always subscribe but it's not even replied or it's declined, usually when the deadline is really short and for obvious reasons they have no time to get a new translator.

When I subscribed to Proz for the first time, I had a job every week, mostly for apps or manuals. Now it's totally different, since I renewed my signature in November I did not get a single request. Actually, sometimes people write me requesting my Russian-Portuguese services, but they always disappear.

Sometimes I ask myself what is pushing away clients, everything in my profile is very clear, the CV is clearly done and very rich, in my career I translated Engineer's meetings and even the speech of Russian president during the opening of World Cup 2018, to the channel Fox Sports Brazil, I even recorded this moment. No one even matches my military knowledge about Russian language (I learned the language by myself using a manual of Defense Ministry of USSR, plus I served Brazilian Army as an officer), however no quote is taken and maybe not even read.

What is happening to Proz and translations as whole? Are people dumping services or what? I always charge values over USD 0,10, which is quite reasonable. I know that some translators work for USD 0,03 and even 0,025, but I'm sure it's not the kind of services companies here look for.

What do you think? I already searched for my name at Blueboard, but it was not there.

[Edited at 2020-03-04 22:45 GMT]

Dylan Jan Hartmann wrote:

I took a quick look at your ProZ.com profile, and then downloaded your CV.

Overall, without looking into any of the details, I was left feeling "unimpressed".

If you've been losing out on jobs, it might be the best idea to seriously work hard on improving your profile and your CV.

A good place to start is the profile completion guide: https://www.proz.com/profile-completion

There are many other examples of good profiles and people exceeding through ProZ.com! So, rather than questioning ProZ.com's system, it might be better to improve your own presence on the system. This is especially important, considering how much longer you have been in the industry (since 2000) than many here.

Answering KudoZ and improving your directory ranking is another VERY important strategy that many overlook.

Also look at your marketing, and past client relations. What happened to your long-term providers over the last 20 years? What caused them to look somewhere else for translations? 20 years is a long time to be left without work.

Once again, look at how you can improve your presence on the system.

Best of luck!

DJH

Vladimir Pochinov wrote:

I fully agree with Sheila. Your profile page leaves much to be desired. For starters, just run a spell-checker on the text in your profile. Too many typos/errors, you know. You may be a great translator, but I would have never contacted you upon review of your profile.

- Profissionalism => Professionalism
- Responsability => Responsibility
- Accuracy
- Quickness
- Openess => Openness

Sheila Wilson wrote:

It is a hard business to be in, and it's getting harder. You seem to have some solid experience, Cristiano, but it doesn't seem to me that you're making the best use of it.

Some ideas that may help:
- Look at your marketing texts through the eyes of a potential client. I get the initial message that you're (a) a volunteer, and (b) an interpreter. That isn't what potential clients want to read if they're looking for a professional translation.
- Have your profile and your CV revised by a native English speaker. Your written English is really quite poor and while that's fine on a daily basis as you don't claim to translate into it, your marketing texts have to be polished until they shine.
- Find out how to make the most of the site, as DJH has suggested. It needs more than money to make it work for you.
- Be more proactive in contacting agencies and potential direct clients, wherever in the world they may be.

Cristiano Lima wrote:
I got surprised concerning "volunteering", since I always assumed it adds to your experience, however I understood what you meant.

Cristiano Lima wrote:
Since I renewed my signature at Proz, I did not get a single project. When I see a job offer, I always subscribe but it's not even replied or it's declined... When I subscribed to Proz for the first time, I had a job every week, mostly for apps or manuals. Now it's totally different, since I renewed my signature in November I did not get a single request. Actually, sometimes people write me requesting my Russian-Portuguese services, but they always disappear.

I always charge values over USD 0,10, which is quite reasonable. I know that some translators work for USD 0,03 and even 0,025, but I'm sure it's not the kind of services companies here look for.