There is high demand for work in the language services sector and an even greater supply of professionals wishing to be involved in this business activity. As is expected, within the context of labor competition and differentiation, people wishing to join an agency, win a project assignment or form part of a company’s resource directory, must do everything they can to stand out and carve a path through the crowd. Likewise, people who are responsible for hiring professional translators or those who are looking for specialized interlinguistic mediation services must carefully and thoughtfully research profiles to find those that best meet their needs and, especially, avoid fraudsters. As we discuss in Scammers: Fraudsters in the translation industry, Scammers: Fraudsters in the translation industry, the Internet is full of people who fraudulently provide translation services. On the one hand, there are people who mainly steal professional translators’ CVs and use them to submit their candidacy using a stolen identity and, on the other hand, there are people who offer translation services for an advance percentage of the total quote and who, after a time, disappear. In the former, it is a clear crime in which personal data is also disclosed and the fraudster claims to have skills and knowledge they do not in fact have. How is the client affected? They receive a translation with absolutely no quality assurance that was perpetrated through cybercrime. In the latter, it is a big scam that directly affects the clients’ budget, which eventually falls apart since in the majority of cases they send money and never receive a translation. This exposure means that clients and hiring managers at translation agencies must be especially vigilant when looking for new profiles and talent, since the Internet (the main search tool) poses a series of risks that can cost dearly.
As a result, the interested parties take more and more precautions when deciding to hire a new professional translator. Until now, the undeniable role of the CV is, of course, clear. A CV clearly, briefly and sincerely summarizes the professional trajectory, academic training and the skills that are brought to any language service company or client. Nevertheless, there is a disadvantageous side to CVs; what is presented on paper does not necessarily correspond to a candidate’s real work. For some time now, the significant marketingmarketing aspect of CV and cover letter writing strategies has been recognized, since we need to know how to sell ourselves. However, this sometimes leads to skills and merits being exaggerated. There are hundreds of stories about professionals that wowed a hiring team with their impressive CV, but in truth their performance was mediocre or even unsatisfactory. Does this mean we can’t trust CVs? Of course not. CVs are, and will continue to be, a tool that provides us with information, which in addition to other means (e.g. in-person interview, recommendation letter, comments and ratings on websites, etc.), helps piece together a general image of a candidate in order to decide whether it is a good fit for a specific project.
Without a doubt, one of the most popular and controversial resources in this regard are translation tests, which are necessary for some, hated by others, defended by some and criticized by others. What exactly are translation tests? What do they bring to the selection process? Are there any risks for either of the parties?
Broadly speaking, translation tests are a resource used by translation agencies and individual clients to verify whether the skills of a translator or translation team meet their expectations and have the qualities necessary to form part of the agency’s in-house team or be a regular provider for a client. They consist of sending a candidate a text in order to perform a series of linguistic exercises, such as translation, editing, cross-checking, monolingual proofreading, transcreation, simplification, etc. The agency or client then reviews the quality of the work and provides feedback, which may or may not result in hiring the services of this professional. Normally, the same translation test is sent to several candidates so that the best results can be analyzed and the person whose work best met the expectations of the interested parties is chosen.
One of the first issues with these translation tests is whether or not they are paid. Normally, candidates are not paid for doing a translation test since they are performed using a pre-set text that the agency or client has prepared beforehand because it contains a series of characteristics of interests such as specific terminology or translations issues. However, there are cases in which the interested party opts to perform a translation test using text from a real assignment, in which case the services are usually paid, regardless of whether the translator is recruited long-term or not. It is important for translators to be vigilant and not accept abusive, unpaid translation tests, bearing in mind that they are usually no longer than 300-500 words. When the word count is higher, it may be the case that a real translation project is being passed off as a translation test, which is a practice that must be stamped out.
However, translation tests are undoubtedly a beneficial resource because they allow a translator’s skills in the specialty of interest to be seen in context, and it is also an opportunity to assess their interpersonal communications and how they deal with incidents and other difficulties. Therefore, correctly performed translation tests are a good option in any hiring process in the translation world.
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