Freelance translation jobs

When you're just starting out as a freelance translator, this can become very discouraging sometimes but the good news is that once the ball gets rolling, it's not as difficult to find work.

(It can still be tough to find work at times and you will most likely go through dry spells, but you'll know how to recognize those sooner and get out of them faster by reading this article.)

There's a quote I like that is attributed to Thomas Edison. When he was asked about all the time he spent trying to invent the light bulb and how he was able to finally do it, he said something to the effect of:

"Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration."

He could have just as well been talking to freelance translators.

There is no single "trick" that works for those trying to find freelance translation jobs. A lot of factors can come into play which can really give you a boost in order to succeed in your business. While you may not be able to control the external factors, there are things you can do to increase the likelihood of you becoming a successful freelance translator (in addition to having the right translator tools).

Finding translation jobs

A couple of the most important things to know are 1) where to find translation work and 2) how to use cheap promotional advertising to market your translation business. Below I've listed a few of the resources that have helped me find translation work. Find what works best for you and then go for it. Remember Thomas Edison.

Look around you

One of the most common ways to find translation work is to look around you and think of all the people you know. Chances are there is somebody in that group that either needs a translation done, or knows somebody else who needs one done. I always hated the term networking in college when they tried to tell us how important it was to meet everybody. I'm not a super social person by nature and I always had trouble with this.

However, what I didn't realize until later was that networking doesn't have to necessarily involve searching out and meeting new people; rather, it is looking at the contacts you do have and seeing if any of them can get you closer to your goal (in this case, finding more work).

If you're still a bit wary of the idea of asking people you know for work, let me share a story with you that puts the idea of networking into a perspective translators will enjoy.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people who know nothing about translation downplay (or even discount) the difference between merely knowing how to speak two languages, and being able to translate in those two languages.

(Check out the page on Spanish myths - A translator's perspective for more pet peeves regarding translation.)

Translations are done completely wrong all the time and it's because people choose not to recognize that translating is a completely different skill than just speaking two languages. Because it's one of those things that just irks me to death, I would often rant and rave to my wife about how nobody respects the work translators do and that they would rather have their sister's son who spent a year in Guatemala with the Peace Corps do a translation for their business rather than a professional because according to them, "It's all the same thing."

Anyway, my wife would sympathize with me and share in my angst. About this time, she was working with some people who became good friends of hers. The parents of one of her friends owned a manufacturing company and they had recently hired some people that could only speak a little bit of English (Spanish was their native language). The parents needed to have some of their Standard Operating Procedures and other materials translated into Spanish and were just going to have their son do the translations because he had lived in Argentina for a little bit and could speak Spanish.

My wife proceeded to tell her friend how that would be a bad move for her parents because the translation would most likely be done incorrectly and then that could have major repercussions not only for the workers, but anyone else working there. My wife explained to her all the major reasons why her parents needed to find a professional translator to do the job.

Well, guess what, her friend relayed all the information to her parents and they decided that they should probably get a professional translator. However, they didn't know any. They asked their daughter (my wife's friend) if she knew any and to make a long story short, I got a pretty good amount of work because my wife talked to her friend at work.

If you want an easy way to let people know you're a translator interested in doing freelance work, think about getting some free business cards to hand out to everyone you know.

Check out your community

After you've started the ball rolling with everyone you know, the next step is to look around in your community and see where you can fill the need for a translator. Local businesses are always concerned with how to attract their customers, no matter what language they speak. The Hispanic population is increasing everywhere and this can be beneficial not only for you as a translator, but also for local businesses who rely on members of the community for their patronage and support.

Go to your local chamber of commerce and see if you can get a list of businesses in the community. You might find a bunch of businesses that could potentially need some of their materials translated and they might just be waiting because they don't know where to go looking for a translator.

While targeting the business in your community, be sure to not forget an important sector of community businesses: non-profit or not-for-profit organizations.

Why are non-profit agencies important to your business? Non-profits, by their very nature, are usually designed to serve a very specific segment of the population and a lot of non-profit organizations direct their efforts towards helping out the Hispanic population within the community. This is where your expertise as a translator can come in handy.

While I was in college, I did some volunteer work at a non-profit community health center that served the low-income population in the community. Because there were a large number of migrant farm workers in the area, a high percentage of the clientele at the health center were Hispanics who only spoke Spanish. A lot of the materials used at the clinic needed to be translated into Spanish in order to better serve the patients and so translation was a high priority of the clinic; so much so that the budget included money for translation projects.

One of the benefits of doing work for non-profit organizations is that different non-profit groups in the community often work close together in various aspects. If one organization has a good experience with a translator, it is highly likely that other non-profits in the community will want to work with that translator when they have freelance translation jobs of their own that need to be done.

When I worked at the community health center, I did some work as a translator for them translating some medical forms. A little while later, some various agencies in the state got together in order to revise the Medicaid forms and I was asked to be on the committee for translating the form into Spanish.

This gave me more contacts and probably more importantly, spread the word to others in the community that I was a good translator who took my job seriously.

Another way that might help your clients see you as a professional translator is to work on becoming a certified translator.

I personally haven't really tried to find freelance translation jobs online but I do visit the freelance translation boards somewhat frequently. However, maybe you'll have better luck.

Read more about finding freelance translation jobs online.