A well thought out recruitment process contributes to providing firms and their clients and target users with the implicit peace of mind that comes with a consistent translation product.
A fundamental tenet of language services is that an organization’s translation product will only be as good as the translator who provides the target content. To provide culturally and technically appropriate translations, translators must have a wide range of knowledge and capabilities, reflected in the standards issued by such organizations as ASTM International and the European Committee for Standardization. As indicated in the ASTM’s “Standard Guide for Quality Assurance in Translation”—“Proficiency in two languages is important, but does not necessarily guarantee translation competence.”1
According to ASTM, source and target language, translation, subject matter, and text types are among the competencies necessary to carry out translation, and firms can use such indicators as certifications and degrees, experience, references, and sample translations to determine if a candidate has the required competencies.2 In European Standard prEN 15038, the European Committee for Standardization adds research, cultural, and technical (translation technology) competencies to those listed by ASTM. These competencies are obtained through “formal higher education in translation … a university degree or equivalent plus a minimum of two years of documented experience in translating, or… at least five years of documented professional experience in translating.”3 The International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 17100 certification is based on the language of prEN 15038.4 Notably, firms maintaining this certification must have documented processes for the verification and maintenance of records of professional competence.5 According to ISO 3.1.8, further requirements include processes for recording ongoing updates to linguist and staff competencies, and highlighting the importance of continuing education in language services.
Whether or not firms intend to pursue certification such as ISO’s, vendor managers can benefit from an awareness of the standards and certification requirements established by large standardization and certifying bodies. This information can be a great knowledge base for initiating recruitment efforts and designing vendor recruitment processes.
Translator Directories: An Essential Recruitment Tool
When recruiting translators in new language pairs or specializations, vendor managers have a variety of online directories at their disposal to identify candidates. Being aware of the characteristics, functionality, and size of directories not only speeds up recruitment, but also aids in the design of language- or specialization-specific recruitment processes. This awareness also helps vendor managers put steps in place to mitigate the risks associated with carrying out recruitment primarily online, among them identifying the best talent available among thousands of search results (in which all sorts of big claims are made about capabilities) and weeding out any translator scammers. (Joseph Wojowski’s article, “On ‘Lying Through Their Teeth’: Identifying Translation Scams,” offers great insights on translator scammers and precautions one can take to avoid them.6)
As a vendor manager, I prefer to start my own recruitment activities with ATA’s Directory of Translators and Interpreters for several reasons—the overall focus of which is to set my recruitment efforts up for the greatest chance of success.7 First, for recruiters, membership in a professional association such as ATA demonstrates translators’ understanding of the business investments necessary to operate as professionals within the language services industry, and presumably, their commitment to the field. Second, membership also represents a greater potential for participating in legitimate ongoing professional development through webinars, articles in The ATA Chronicle, or the ATA’s Annual Conference. Members of professional associations are also more likely to have strong networks of other members of professional associations to whom they can turn with language-, process-, or technology-related questions—and who they can recommend to vendor managers!
Other well-known translator directories include Proz.com and Translators Café (TC).8 These directories are good resources for languages of lesser diffusion, in particular. However, when recruiting through these directories, vendor managers should be aware that the free profiles available on these sites are more likely to attract scammers and new translators who are more likely to misrepresent their translation and subject-matter qualifications. That’s not to say that professionals can’t be found on directories such as Proz and TC, only that added efforts are recommended to verify that individuals’ actual training, background, tools, etc., correspond to any claims they’ve made in their directory profiles—advice that holds true no matter the directory through which one recruits. (Recruiters can also limit their searches on Proz to display only vendors who have had their credentials verified by Proz, which is a worthwhile parameter to put in place.)
While the ATA, Proz, and TC directories are perhaps the best known, regional professional associations are excellent resources for recruitment efforts. For example, visiting the member directories of ATA chapters and affiliates (including my local group, the Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters) is a great solution for recruiting U.S.-based linguists for any projects with location or citizenship requirements.9 Vendor managers can also carry out simple online searches to identify professional associations and their directories for specific target countries, such as the Swedish Association of Professional Translators10 for Swedish translators, the Brazilian Association of Translators and Interpreters11 for Brazilian Portuguese linguists, and the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario12 for Canadian French. Beyond these online resources, there’s no substitute for meeting new candidates in person at local and national translation events and conferences. For vendor managers and all other translation professionals, it pays to get involved.
Basic Criteria for Identifying Suitable Vendors
An often-quoted statistic within the language services industry is that recruiters decide whether to pursue a candidate after spending just one minute scanning that candidate’s résumé, CV, or profile. This is absolutely the case, and the speed with which this decision-making is carried out is based on the reality of recruitment. To illustrate, my own vendor management experience includes recruiting talent in over 50 languages. To carry out that recruitment, I contacted 1,000 candidates in 2016 alone, and of these 1,000 initial contacts, approximately 40% of candidates responded to my request. Of the approximately 40% who responded, around 20% met the criteria established by my firm for experience, education, translation technology, payment capabilities, etc. That is to say, for every one translator who met the organizational requirements to be passed on to linguistic testing, 12.5 translators were contacted. That does not include the countless profiles, résumés, and CVs that were first screened to even establish a list of candidates to contact. Therefore, no matter the directory being used to identify candidates, vendor managers should have a well-defined list of basic criteria that will allow them to quickly determine (within one minute) if a translator’s profile meets their organizational needs.
Basic criteria are determined based on an organization’s specific circumstances. In general, providers of language services look for a minimum amount of education, translation experience in the relevant subject, continuing education, and experience with translation technology. Minimum requirements are determined based on the organization’s structure, and on its workflow, capabilities, and clients’ needs. For example, the complexity of content intended for use at medical instrumentation trade shows means that recruiters will work based off much more stringent requirements to ensure that the translated material is both technically and culturally (marketing) appropriate. On the other hand, for human resources content with a limited audience and a strong translation memory and editor, recruitment parameters are more flexible.
Regardless of the specifics, vendor managers carefully develop their organization’s basic criteria for new partner translators. They analyze the needs of their businesses carefully to—once again—set up their recruitment efforts for the greatest chance of success. Carefully determined criteria allow recruiters to quickly decide if a translator profile is a good fit. Being aware of red flags to avoid—such as potential candidates who list too many specializations or language pairs or who work into non-native languages—helps vendor managers ensure that their recruitment efforts establish relationships with qualified professionals whose experience and capabilities align with organizational needs.
Making Initial Contact
Initiating contact with candidates whose profiles seem to meet organizational requirements is another component of recruitment that requires a deliberate process. During initial contact, recruiters request the documentation that will allow them to verify that a translator’s background aligns with organizational needs. Carrying out this verification is incredibly important because it protects translation firms from working with individuals who do not have the necessary qualifications and training. This process also serves to elevate the field of translation as a whole, since requiring candidates to provide evidence of their qualifications (such as diplomas and certifications) is a check that allows vendor managers to avoid translator scammers and inexperienced translators who have misrepresented their capabilities. Keep in mind that checking documents like diplomas and certifications requires an understanding of degree equivalencies and the resources necessary to verify any target-language documents submitted.
On the other hand, this initial request for documentation must also be carried out in a way that recognizes the administrative time investments being made by all participants. Therefore, any initial contact should clearly define a firm’s basic requirements and the documents for submittal. Further, any forms the translator is required to complete and submit should be designed in a way so as to capture all of the information the firm requires to establish a working relationship (i.e., experience, education, contact details, billing information, translation technology, etc.) in a single pass. Having a clear set of requirements eliminates the back and forth that results when these parameters are not defined, thereby promoting efficiency. It also allows both vendor managers and translators to determine as quickly as possible if a potential working relationship is a good fit, allowing all parties to focus limited resources to areas of greatest impact.
Aside from giving vendor managers the chance to verify credentials and collect necessary information, the initial contact and request for documentation is also an incredibly valuable opportunity to test candidates in a variety of other areas. For example, an initial contact email with a clearly defined list of required documents for submittal gives vendor managers an immediate opportunity to determine a candidate’s ability to follow directions. Any CVs or résumés submitted also serve as indicators of translators’ formatting capabilities and of their ability to organize and present information based on their audience’s needs (i.e., information should be presented based on the understanding that recruiters will spend no more than one minute scanning those documents).
When a vendor manager requests samples and translators refuse based on nondisclosure agreements they have signed with other firms, the vendor manager can take this as an indication that any content translated for her or his organization will be handled with the same care. For any samples that are provided, vendor managers can also check that no client-identifying information is included in either the content or the file properties.
Overall, the process for requesting documentation is designed to allow vendor managers to carry out as much due diligence as possible at that stage. Like all the stages of vendor recruitment, having intentional processes in place allows vendor managers to ensure that their recruitment efforts will yield the greatest results, so that only the best talent available is passed on to any subsequent linguistic testing phases.
A Comprehensive Process
The design and implementation of successful recruitment processes requires substantial investments of time and resources, as evidenced by the descriptions of the stages outlined above. This article does not even address the organizational parameters necessary for tracking recruitment efforts or the linguistic testing phase that follows recruitment. Still, since recruitment processes are designed to establish mutually beneficial relationships with professional candidates, organizations must approach recruitment with an understanding of what their investments will yield. For instance, communication between vendor managers and translators during recruitment sets the tone for the entire working relationship between a translator and a firm. A well-designed and efficient process not only accomplishes the explicit objectives of collecting information and verifying credentials, but also indicates a firm’s quality expectations to candidates, and the kind of approach they can expect when working with that organization. A well-designed process therefore aids in attracting the best talent available.
More importantly, front-end investments in recruitment processes allow firms to prevent the translation mishaps that result when working with untrained providers, which reflect poorly on an organization’s services and reputation and are exponentially more costly to repair on the back end than good preventative processes. A well thought out recruitment process contributes to providing firms and their clients and target users with the implicit peace of mind that comes with a consistent translation product. That product is the result of working with quality providers.
Therefore, vendor recruitment must be counted among the most critical of processes for translation firms. After all, organizations can work with the most up-to-date technology and design the most intricate of production processes, yet even with the best supporting components in place, the translation product will only be as good as the translator who provides the target content.
Notes
- ASTM International, F 2575-06, “Standard Guide for Quality Assurance in Translation” (June 2006), 6, http://bit.ly/ASTM-F2575-06.
- Ibid., 6–7.
- European Committee for Standardization, prEN 15038, “Translation Services—Service Requirements” (2004), 6–7, http://qualitystandard.bs.en-15038.com.
- International Organization for Standardization, ISO 17100, “Translation Services—Requirements for Translation Services” (2015), www.iso.org/standard/59149.html.
- Ballou, Gregory. “ISO 17100 Certification: Who, What, Why, and How?” Presentation at ATA’s 57th Annual Conference, November 3, 2016, San Francisco, California.
- Wojowski, Joseph. “On ‘Lying Through Their Teeth’: Identifying Translation Scams,” MATI Blog (Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters, November 18, 2015), http://matiata.org/blog/3646640.
- ATA Directory of Translators and Interpreters, www.atanet.org/onlinedirectories.
- ProZ Directory of Translators and Interpreters (www.proz.com/translator-directory) and Translators Café (www.translatorscafe.com).
- ATA’s chapters and affiliates page, www.atanet.org/chaptersandgroups.
- Swedish Association of Professional Translators, www.sfoe.se/eng.
- Brazilian Association of Translators and Interpreters, http://abrates.com.br/?lang=en.
- Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario, https://atio.on.ca.
Alaina Brandt is a project, vendor, and translation memory manager. A Spanish>English translator, she has an MA in language, literature, and translation from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She served as a director of the Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters (an ATA chapter) from 2012 to 2016. Contact: alainambrandt@gmail.com.