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The Savvy Newcomer aims to serve newcomers to the translation and interpreting professions by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content on a weekly basis. We strive to provide you with the answers to the many questions you face as a new or aspiring translator or interpreter.

Professional Etiquette to Lower Your Stress and Improve Work-Life Balance

By The Savvy Newcomer | August 6, 2025
Professional Etiquette to Lower Your Stress and Improve Work-Life Balance

What people are looking for in a career is undergoing a massive shift in our culture. Younger professionals tend to prioritize mental health and often want the ability to arrange their schedule to make time for life commitments outside of their professional endeavors—such as pursuing other jobs or embracing family responsibilities. In fact, according to Upwork, “Gen Z is abandoning conventional 9-to-5 corporate jobs for more diverse, flexible careers in freelancing.” Similarly, Kate Palmer, an employment services director at Peninsula UK, states that “Generation Z are known to place more importance on flexibility, work-life balance, and personal well-being, and, therefore,…

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Savvy Diversification Series – Offering Consulting Services to Other Freelancers

By The Savvy Newcomer | April 26, 2022
Savvy Diversification Series – Offering consulting services to other freelancers

The Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. With this in mind, we’ve invited a series…

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Should Translators Work for Free?

By The Savvy Newcomer | April 19, 2022

This post was originally published on Holly-Anne Whyte’s blog. It is reposted here with permission. I work in the international development sector so this question is very close to my heart. I know that my clients do fantastic work and do, in some cases, rely on volunteers to make that work happen. But the very fact that my clients work…

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Writing Resources

By The Savvy Newcomer | April 5, 2022
Writing Resources

The following list was originally published on the Scientist Sees Squirrel blog, where it is updated periodically. It is reposted here with permission. Writing is a huge part of any career in science, and for many writers – no, for most writers – it’s a daunting challenge. But it’s not a challenge that you have to tackle alone. That’s a…

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Four Toxic Mindsets That Can Kill Your Translation Career Before It Starts

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 22, 2022

When I was president of the Michigan Translators/Interpreters Network (MiTiN, pronounced “mitten,” get it?) a few years ago, I saw a long-lost member at an ATA conference. We had both joined in the 1990s. I went on to a freelance career as a translator, and he ended up owning a large language service provider. I pointed out that he hadn’t…

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Three (Surprising) Reasons for Poor Quality Translations

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 22, 2022

This post was originally published on Content Rules. It is reposted with permission. Usually, when someone tells you that your translations are poor, the first tendency is to blame the translators. Blaming the people doing the work might make sense. However, in my experience, the cause of poor translation is often not the person trying their best to translate the…

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Taking and Preparing for ATA’s Online Certification Exam

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 15, 2022

New year, new goals. Each new year provides a blank slate for tackling personal and professional goals. Is studying for the ATA Certification Exam one of your goals for 2022? Preparing for an exam with a 20% pass rate can be daunting. The Certification tab on ATA’s website describes the exam as a “mid-career credential for experienced, professional translators or…

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Creating a Social Media Plan for Busy Translators

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 8, 2022

This post was originally published on Integrated MarCom Translations blog. It is reposted with permission. No doubt you’ve heard it before: If you’re trying to increase your exposure, grow your network, and win more clients, you’ve got to work the social media scene. You may even have created your own Twitter account, grouped your Facebook contacts into relevant audiences for…

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Summary of “Defining Translation Quality”

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 1, 2022
Summary of “Defining Translation Quality”

The article “Defining Translation Quality” (Koby, Fields, Hague, Lommel, and Melby) is the third article in a series of articles. This particular article starts by referencing the first two articles. It mentions that the first article talked about the scope (how broadly one defines translation) and specifications (how explicitly requirements must be stated) concerning definitions of translation and that the…

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Spoken Language Interpreter Job Description: Excellent Resource for Clients and Employers

By The Savvy Newcomer | January 18, 2022
Spoken Language Interpreter Job Description

The Spoken Language Interpreter Job Description, authored by Norma Andrada, Heidi Cazes, Helen Eby, Julia Poger, and Rafael Treviño, might be called a job description, but I swear it’s one of the simplest and most straightforward ways to answer client and employer questions about what interpreters do. The variety of the authors’ backgrounds and locations definitely enrich this solid and…

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