Interpreter Career Paths

In-House Interpreters
When someone who isn't familiar with the interpretation profession thinks of an interpreter, they often think of someone who works at a big political organization like the European Union or the United Nations and spends their whole day interpreting for diplomats and other political figures.

While this was sensationalized a bit in the movie The Interpreter, this is a somewhat correct view of those who work in these organizations. For example, below is an outline of the responsibilities for an English interpreter taken from a job description from the UN website:

Under the broad supervision of the Chief of the English Interpretation Section, the incumbent provides interpretation into English of speeches and statements given in French and Spanish or Russian. S/he is routinely assigned to sensitive meetings; routinely function as team leader of all interpreters assigned to the same meeting.

Courts often have a list of interpreters by language and whenever they have a need for a particular language, they will contact the interpreter. As you can imagine, freelance interpreters can often go through periods of "feast or famine" similar to what translators go through. The one benefit that court interpreters have is that there is an incredible demand for Spanish interpreters and there is not as big an interpreter pool of certified federal court interpreters as there is for translators, so there is more opportunity for work.

In addition to getting paid for the actual time spent interpreting, freelance interpreters also often get reimbursed for additional expenses such as travel, food, etc.

Interpreters/Translators
The last type of interpreter career path that I want to highlight here is the one taken by those people who do both interpretation and translation. Many people mistakenly believe that if someone can do one of these activities adequately, that person will have no trouble doing the other. This is one of the biggest myths of the interpretation/language field.

I have said before that I am not an interpreter but I did do some basic interpreting practice during my university education and I know firsthand how different the two are. As such, it is more rare that you'll find someone who can do both equally well.

If you find someone who claims that they can both interpret and translate without a problem, be a little skeptical and make sure you find out about their previous clients, education, training, etc. because while it can be done and there are people that do it, it is more rare.

Most interpreter careers fall into one of the above categories, but remember that no two interpreters will follow the same path.

Back to language interpreters.