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There’s a very interesting post on test translations over here. I have my doubts about them myself, so was very interested to read this.
For the record, while I’ve not done as many test translations as Mr. Gerasimov, I have done my fair share and my experience has been pretty much in line with his, i.e. agencies inform me I am on their “freelance list” but I never hear from them again, or I get contacted with jobs well below my usual rates. Generally, I’m left wondering why I ever bothered. And then there was the agency who insisted on contacting me at 4.30pm every Friday for a period of about 6 months with a series of 5,000 – 6,000 word jobs due in for 9am the following Monday, even when I had told them that I didn’t work weekends… given I was usually working to my own COB deadlines on Fridays, I eventually decided I didn’t need the hassle and politely asked them to remove me from their database.
Nowadays, I demonstrate my abilities to potential clients in other ways, e.g. with references, extracts from prior translations (suitably sanitised), etc. and so far, all my clients have been happy with this. But overall, the advice I suggested in this post last year still stands, especially when it comes to doing test translations.
Finally, I don’t like plain old them-against-us posts, and it’s only fair to say that I can understand why agencies feel they need to ask for test translations. But there are loads of other ways to demonstrate your competence, and experience has taught me that nine-and-a-half times out of ten, test translations are a complete waste of time.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel your pain. It’s not just test translations, but also the gazillions of pages of agency info and instructions that you are asked to read through…
Exactly! Then there’s the detailed rate sheets I’ve been asked to complete, (sometimes annually, even when I’ve not worked with the agency that year!), for random services that I’ll never hear of again… in 5 different currencies, wordcounts, etc.
I guess it could be worse – at least I’m not the poor soul who has to enter all the info into a big, black hole of a database somewhere LOL!
Thanks for the comment!
Nice post — I wish I’d seen it before I blogged about free trials here.
I think the best situation for the translator is to get new clients through introductions. When the client comes to you, you can be more confident that they’re serious about hiring you; and they’re usually more likely to give you a small paid job rather than a trial to test you out.
That said, I recently went against my own general rule of not doing trials, and took one for a job offer posted to a mailing list. To my surprise, the client has turned into a great source of work, and I’ve got some of my best work this year from them. So trials can work out sometimes.