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how to get my first job here?
Thread poster: Rosannelei
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 19:11
English to Arabic
+ ...
hot summer brain Jul 27, 2020

For everyone that is counting too much on the job board, allow me to try and put your mind at ease.

It wasn't until I read this (https://theopenmic.co/is-proz-dead-or-alive/) that I started to realize what I was facing on the job board.

On the job board, job posters could be categorized into:

-- SCAMMERS (need no introduction, this forum mentions them q
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For everyone that is counting too much on the job board, allow me to try and put your mind at ease.

It wasn't until I read this (https://theopenmic.co/is-proz-dead-or-alive/) that I started to realize what I was facing on the job board.

On the job board, job posters could be categorized into:

-- SCAMMERS (need no introduction, this forum mentions them quite often to the point of changing the song name into "it's raining con(men)")

They are:

Time wasters;
Leeches;
Organized criminals; and most likely
Psychologically ill.

-- LEGIT COMPANIES

- Some of them are posting fake jobs, merely to maintain a digital footprint as part of their PR campaign.

- Some others are just 'facades/fronts,' where the job is posted by a company from a poor country on behalf of another company from a rich country, in an attempt to squeeze translators' quotes into rates as valuable as dust.

- And, there are those companies from rich countries who post as such, but -almost always- with a requirement that the translator be located within the same rich country or else within one of a handful of other rich countries; the same could sometimes be a government requirement, arrangement against migration of funds, or desire to simply have the translator under the same jurisdiction.

-- LEGIT INDIVIDUALS

They are either:

Fellow providers (feeling out competition, or else outsourcing at peanuts to keep the better chunk for themselves)

Or:

Individual clients (mostly without enough funds; but, if they do, then you hit the jackpot)

-- SO-CALLED CHARITIES (the pro-bono beast, plenty of them around too)


Also worth noting that:

You shouldn't engage multi-language requests; if they don't respect you enough to post a job solely dedicated to your pair, don't respect them enough by answering to their job, as you will probably not get a reply from them.

Avoid any job poster dictating their payment terms in advance within the job posting. You, the service provider, are the one who must dictate the payment terms or, in worst case, mutually negotiate them after having carefully examined the project material(s); but, you shouldn't be accepting their dictated terms.

KUDOZ is a sure way to waste both your time and effort in exchange for nothing. Others will make money out of it, but not you. And, you will surely be met with a great deal of ingratitude by many of the askers, who won't even write a simple "thank you."

Even first page in the directory won't pay off. "I invest time in answering kudos questions in the fields I specialize and do my best to end up in the first page of a translator search for those specific fields. I have been on it for 3 years and I never won a project!," a statement by Enrico Antonio Mion from the blog above.

There exist organized groups in many language pairs on ProZ, and they are organized against you, and against your ability to get any jobs.

With all the afore-mentioned, if you think -or, if you're being led to think- it's your fault you're not getting jobs in here, I'm telling you it's not your fault. The system is faulty.

I hope the above helps, as analysis is one of my dearest hobbies.
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Marina Taffetani
Olga Sushytska
WS McCallum
 
Paul Dixon
Paul Dixon  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:11
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Conducive? Jul 27, 2020

Jean: Could you please explain exactly what you mean by a 'conducive mentality'?

 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:11
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Overly cynical? Jul 27, 2020

I won't reply to all the massively sweeping statements you used to categorise posters. Suffice it to say that of course there are some time-wasters out there. But no way can you condemn every job poster because of the bad apples. Fortunately, many of the bottom-feeding agencies make their intentions totally obvious so none of us have to waste any time on them.

Sadek_A wrote:
Even first page in the directory won't pay off. "I invest time in answering kudos questions in the fields I specialize and do my best to end up in the first page of a translator search for those specific fields. I have been on it for 3 years and I never won a project!," a statement by Enrico Antonio Mion from the blog above.

I know some people are happy to be paying members without any intention of trying to get jobs here, and that's fine, but would anyone throw away over a hundred euros a year if the aim was to find work but there was never any ROI? I see that Mr Mion is still a paying member, five years later.

A while back, in response to a similar thread, I had a look at my own statistics, which date back to 2006. I display my rates on my profile and I rarely lower them (and never without good business justification). I found that, as of 1/5/2020, I'd landed new clients as follows:
ProZ.com job board (public or private): 31
Private message through ProZ.com profile; contact through its directory list; ProZ.com client or peer referral: 42 plus a few
No link at all to ProZ.com: around 15


Yoana Ivanova
Eric Azevedo
 
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Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
   Jul 28, 2020

Paul Dixon wrote:

Jean: Could you please explain exactly what you mean by a 'conducive mentality'?


Paul, I am surprised you ask. I think the meaning can easily be guessed from the dictionary definition: Conducive: that provides conditions that make it easy or possible to do something

By conductive mentality, I mean an attitude that tends to make it possible to obtain good results in a given situation (here, the translation business context).

From your contributions on ProZ forums, I think your attitude is not very conducive to positive outcomes.

All I am saying is that a change of perspective could make a huge difference, where I see nothing good coming from learned helplessness.

For more examples of what I mean by conductive vs non-conducive, please read my second post and Lincoln's first, which I thought quite sobering and instructive.

PS:

I am not saying the answer to all problems is ProZ (especially the job board, of which I personally steer clear) or taking up a ProZ membership. By all means, check your available options and DYOR (do your own research).

Now excuse me, but I have to engage in more conductive/productive activities…

[Edited at 2020-07-28 06:40 GMT]


expressisverbis
 
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Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 16:11
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Benefit from the jobs board may depend on which languages you work in Jul 28, 2020

@ Rosannelei

Finding good jobs on the jobs board is a tough competition, and it probably depends on your language pair how many good jobs there are. I have applied for very few jobs posted on the jobs board, and only actually been chosen for a handful. (since 2003!) A lot of the jobs posted in my language pair are very poorly paid.

A lot of the time, however, I have been too busy to look for jobs that way, but working for clients who found me directly or indirectly thro
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@ Rosannelei

Finding good jobs on the jobs board is a tough competition, and it probably depends on your language pair how many good jobs there are. I have applied for very few jobs posted on the jobs board, and only actually been chosen for a handful. (since 2003!) A lot of the jobs posted in my language pair are very poorly paid.

A lot of the time, however, I have been too busy to look for jobs that way, but working for clients who found me directly or indirectly through Proz.com. That is where paid membership and answering Kudoz paid off. I was near the top of the directory, and once clients had found me, they very often came back with more work.

Some were excellent clients, some were not, and I dropped them again. That is a luxury you can afford when you are busy, and I hope you get there! Things ARE difficult at the moment, but keep trying.

I have also seen really good clients posting jobs on the job board after they had contacted me directly and I had regretfully turned them down.

As I said earlier, the best jobs come from clients who find you, so you need to make yourself easy to find!
If you have not already done so, you can try the webinar here for some good advice:

https://www.proz.com/translator-training/course/17308-meeting_clients_at_prozcom

Keep trying, and best of luck!
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Michele Fauble
Mason Reed
 
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Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 16:11
Member
English to French
To each their own experience Jul 28, 2020

Sadek_A wrote:
...you give them the same advice that they must optimize their profile, thus constantly making them think it's their fault and that they're not 'perfect' enough for the jobs...

Business is not only about following advice or instructions. And you draw this conclusion just before describing yourself as mature.
...I tried the paid membership, and I can safely say I won't repeat it for as long as the current faulty system stays the same without radical fixes.

"It's the system": how time-wasting agencies justify harder efforts than expected, late payment, lower fees and/or added free work. You want only vetted outsourcers with deep pockets on this platform, but it won't happen.
One year, I registered with ATA and paid the membership fee, as an experiment to see what it would bring me. I simply waited, I didn't even open the magazines. Guess what? 0 ROI. I read many people are very happy with ATA. I don't blame them, and I don't blame ATA. ATA wasn't for me at the time.

Your experience with proz.com is disastrous, and everybody else's as well, but not mine. I may be one of the lucky few, but I do get work through proz.com. Granted, it's less often than when I registered. I've been renewing my membership for many years. I contribute to KudoZ to maintain my ranking in the Directory. I've tried to make my profile attractive. And I've been posting here because the main point of the Web 2.0 is to be there, not to be interesting or relevant. To paraphrase Confucius, marketing is mostly a waste of time, but you never know in advance when it is wasted and when it converts into money. What's obvious is that waiting for proz.com to give you work, blaming the system or relying on the job board to get work is pointless. And even more now than 15-20 years ago.

If proz.com doesn't work for you, other platforms or channels might. Don't waste more time and effort on this site.
Oh, I've been with proz.com for a long time, but they still don't pay me when I "defend" the site, and I get no discounts on my membership fee.

Philippe


Sheila Wilson
Christel Zipfel
expressisverbis
Jorge Payan
Christine Andersen
Jean Dimitriadis
 
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