| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Have you ever dropped a translation test after having started it? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 09:05
French to English
I nearly did a few years ago. I was only a few months into freelancing and had just hit my first dry spell. I saw an ad for a salaried position and applied. The test they sent me was very technical, about helicopter engines or something like that. I nearly wrote back to say they must have made a mistake, then thought, what the hell, I'll give it a go.
The next day they asked me to go in for an interview! I ended up not taking the job because it was too far to cycle to work, and suddenly I... See more I nearly did a few years ago. I was only a few months into freelancing and had just hit my first dry spell. I saw an ad for a salaried position and applied. The test they sent me was very technical, about helicopter engines or something like that. I nearly wrote back to say they must have made a mistake, then thought, what the hell, I'll give it a go.
The next day they asked me to go in for an interview! I ended up not taking the job because it was too far to cycle to work, and suddenly I was inundated with freelancing work anyway! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nikolay Novitskiy
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:05
Member (2018)
English to Russian
| I don't remember for sure | May 26, 2020 |
DZiW wrote:
I bet their flat rate is a way under $0.05/word, right? Nice.
I don't remebmer for sure, but I think that their offer was quite interesting. But it doesn't really matter, because I had my reasons to refuse. However, politeness never hurts, right?
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 02:05
English to Russian
+ ...
| Why should any serious client rely solely on papers and self-proclamations? | May 26, 2020 |
Susanne Toito wrote:
I'm just a newbie at this freelance stuff, but already these 'tests' rub me the wrong way. Why is it someone with a graduate degree and experience in the area should be asked to do a 'test'?
I also used to be a teacher and only in the 'private' schools did they ask people to 'teach' a class so that they could observe before you get hired. This is an insult, IMHO.
We keep advising on checking and double-checking prospective clients almost as thoroughly as the forms for top clearance require, but feel insulted when someone is trying to check us out before paying thousands of dollars?
Susanne, have you ever met a bad lawyer or a doctor with an impressive degree? I have. My experience as a former PM and a team translator proves that some people with degrees, certifications etc etc enough to replace a wallpaper on a long wall can't put 2 coherent sentences together in their native language and have a very poor feel of the source language. Complemented by utter incapability to translate and no clue that just the knowledge of 2 languages does not cut it. Or, maybe, just the style of an otherwise good translator does not fit the purpose of a specific project and is but an "accident waiting to happen" between h/h and a chief editor? I personally prefer to be sure from the beginning that I want to work under my future editor; looking at the corrections, I might be the first to say "No, thank you." I will be testing them as much as they test me. As impudent as it sounds, I would regard a rejection of my tests in certain areas as a blessing in disguise.
I will say it for the 100th time - the 64-dollar question always is: "Who wants to know?" Mass mail from certain geographical regions? Trash it. But a request from a major reputable client with a proven project at hand gives a much stronger assurance that we are dealing with a serious and well-paying party. If you have enough samples in line with the subject and intent of their project, offer it instead. For certain clients I would do both and with all my experience I won't be insulted one bit. If I were a client of such scale, I'd think twice why a person is resisting to write a proposal, which, in fact, is what out test is all about as it represents a common practice of competing for a project in any contractor business. Especially if h/s is lacking readily available and closely relevant samples to add to fancy papers. Is h/s selling me a snake oil?
When a company hires a young specialist with a degree for a long-term employment, they know that they are getting raw material with the proper basics, and it will take them years to season him to a valuable company asset. Even during the interview HR does not expect that person to impress them the same way a senior engineer could but the degree is very important. When the same company is looking for a contractor, that contractor must be fully seasoned and impress right away. Any degree by itself can not possible ensure that.
BTW, I don't have kids but if I had and was able and willing to spend a ton of money on a good private school, I'd absolutely love the opportunity to observe a demo lesson conducted by their future teachers... say, a demo video. I would wish that more schools will be accepting this practice.
| | | | | Yes, it has happened to me | May 27, 2020 |
A while ago, I decided to participate in a translation procurement for a public sector client. All went well until the test translation stage. The test they sent out left me completely stunned. Both in terms of linguistic and subject matter complexity it was well above any content I had ever seen the client produce (it is usually made public). For a comparison, imagine you are preparing to translate drug labels and then are given a specialist medical journal article as a test translation.
... See more A while ago, I decided to participate in a translation procurement for a public sector client. All went well until the test translation stage. The test they sent out left me completely stunned. Both in terms of linguistic and subject matter complexity it was well above any content I had ever seen the client produce (it is usually made public). For a comparison, imagine you are preparing to translate drug labels and then are given a specialist medical journal article as a test translation.
I decided then and there this is not something I want to go ahead with. I would be moving at a snail's pace, constantly doubting myself, and would likely need to actually invent some of the terminology, since the discussed topics (which, again, were nearly entirely philosophical/fundamental rather than practical and barely related to the ordinary work of that organization) are hardly ever studied by scholars who publish their work in my somewhat smallish native language. As this was a standardized procurement, they would never have agreed to give me a different test either. I honestly don't know how that procurement ended - have never bothered to go back and check. Perhaps they found some geniuses who wanted this gig more than I did and pushed themselves to deliver a decent work, who knows. I am still curious about the underlying purpose of this test - I definitely don't believe it was supposed to test my familiarity with the relevant terminology and linguistic style of the client in question. ▲ Collapse
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