How I scored my first translation job

Eventually, though, that job will come and after that things do become a bit easier. Once you have confidence that you are a good translator and that people need your services, things start to snowball.

It's that first job, though, that's the hard part. If you're still looking for that first call from a client, remember that you never know how that translation job will come.

I was in college when I got my first paying job as a translator, but it didn't come about like I thought it would.

I was enrolled in the Spanish translation program at school and worked part-time at a local health clinic. At the clinic, the majority of the patients were Spanish-speakers and so we had to translate a lot of brochures and information packets for the patients.

Well, I worked alongside a girl who was a native Spanish-speaker but who had poor grammar and was not very educated. Well, who do you think they wanted to do all of the translations in the office? The people in charge at the clinic didn't know anything about translation and figured that she would know more than me, simply because I had brown hair and blue eyes.

Every night I would go home and complain to my wife how people don't understand that someone needs to be trained as a translator or have significant education and/or experience to be able to do the job well. It frustrated me to no end.

Well, the next day, my wife was telling all this to one of her coworkers. After relating the story, her coworker told her that her parents owned a business and were looking for someone to translate some material for them. They were originally going to ask a relative who spoke Spanish (but had no training), but after my wife told her the story, she wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing the job.

Well, needless to say, I accepted the job and was ecstatic to receive my first translation job. (And I was happy to have educated someone else about some translation myths.

So the point to remember, especially if you haven't yet scored that first translation job, is that it will come, but usually not in the way that you expect.