You need to choose a specialization area that you enjoy researching.

This is a question that’s often asked in our industry, and perhaps the best piece of advice we can offer is that you need to choose a specialization area that you enjoy researching. What type of documents do you enjoy reading and researching? Of course it’s also important to identify the areas that you’re not interested in specializing so that, if you’re working with a direct client who has a wide range of documents, you might want to say that you don’t work with (say) financial or legal documents – or whatever your case may be. This helps the client know if you’re a good fit for them.

Contacting Translation Agencies

When you approach a translation agency or company, our advice is to be completely honest with them by differentiating between specializations that you’re interested in and specializations that you have experience in. It’s very acceptable to say that, just because you’ve never worked in the area of A, you’re actually quite interested in this topic in your own language - and you also know quite a bit about the terminology. In addition, tell the company or agency honestly that you’re just getting started in your translation business and you’re open to working in different specializations. Next, be very clear what your areas of interest are.

Volunteering Your Translation Services

Many of today’s successful translators started their career by volunteering their services in order to gain experience - prior to applying to direct clients and/or translation agencies. This is a really good idea because both the translator and the client benefit, plus the fact that pro-bono projects are much less stressful than working for paying clients. Generally, when working for a pro-bono client, the translator will be given an extended deadline – much more generous than a paying client would offer.

If working as a volunteer translator is something you’re interested in, you have the option of seeking out work on your own or working with an established service that matches volunteer translators with clients. If using a service sounds preferable to you, here are two areas you may be interested in –

Translations for Progress is like a job board with a wide range of languages, created especially for volunteer translators. These translations include a disclaimer stating that the translation must be for not-for-profit purposes. Once you’ve created your online account you can contact the non-profits directly that are looking for translators.

Translators without Borders was designed with international humanitarian organizations in mind. As a volunteer translator, you’ll be required to go through an application and testing process. It seems that Translators without Borders’ main languages appear to be English < > French.

Of course, if your languages are not represented and/or the above options are not appealing to you, consider doing your own research and finding some volunteer translation work. Possibilities might include Public Health Clinics, Legal Aid Agencies, International Development Organisations, NGOs, and so on. In fact, there would be many businesses out there, both large and small, that would gladly accept your offer of a top-quality pro-bono translation. Of course, another bonus for the volunteer translator is that you can ask the business to provide a reference for you if they’re happy with your work.