Hi, I am the CEO of the company.
I am writing a longer and constructive answer to freelance translators` feedback. That feedback was very legitimate, thanks for it.
I hope it will help the other our translators to understand how translation industry works, how our company works. By having this knowledge they will become even more successful.
Question. As a translator I feel that my rate is too low. How can I increase it?
Explanation. Translation industry is competitive and rates depend on your language and your region. Translation companies pay higher rates when they hire translators from high-income countries such as Norway and lower for low income countries such as Ukraine, Romania. Additionally, because a law of economy “bigger supply – lower prices“, there are more translators in Ukraine with 45 000 000 speakers and less in Norway with 5 000 000 speakers.
Advice. If we have enough qualified translators for your language combination, we will not increase rate as we pay market prices. However, write to our HR colleagues that hired you and ask to look at your quality level and offer the new rate. If your quality is better than quality of other translators, HR might increase the rate.
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Question. As a translator, I sometimes see that old translations in TMs (translation memories) are of low quality. Therefore they don`t help me to do my work faster.
Explanation. In translation industry TMs belong to clients. The end clients hire different suppliers (different translation companies and different freelancers) and over time TMs are full of good and bad quality translators. As a supplier we are using what clients send us.
Advice. This is not a big problem for client: they pay translators for correcting translation before inserting it from TM into the document they translate. TM is only a helper, and sometimes helps more, sometimes – less.
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Question. As a translator I receive post-editing job offers (where Machine Translation (MT) is inserted and I am asked to make it human quality). I don`t like post-editing.
Explanation. We work for biggest companies in the world and they ask us to use MT and provide post-editing services as they want to increase translator`s productivity and save their money. As a supplier, we do what they want. Additionally, we are Innovation advocates and learn to work with innovations faster than the mainstream.
Advice. You can skip post-editing job offers and only take “good-old-TM jobs“. However, we write Training Material and help translators to learn new skills of working with MT. This innovation is not perfect, but inevitable and we have data that most translators become productive. Be brave, we will help you to learn!
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Question. As a translator I confirm job offer, but project manager sometimes prepares files too slowly and receive files later than estimated START DATE.
Explanation. Your comment is true, I admit. It happens that Project Managers have too much work, especially during summer holiday season.
Advice. We are working on making it faster. As a faster fix, we will write less-optimistic START DATES into job offers and you will get files no later that promised START DATE. I understand that you need to plan your work and delays are not helping.
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Below is the feedback of non-anonymous colleagues. Click to verify authenticity https://www.proz.com/blueboard/11606
And apply to work for us by clicking on the below link to our Career page: https://talents.synergium.eu
Did I answer your questions? If not, write to me at feedback (at) synergium.eu and I will help you in a few days. Or just write to HR colleagues that hired you, they will help. They really care about translators, but they have limited time serving hundreds of translators with daily issues.
(An old video of my wonderful creative colleagues: http://bit.ly/2qguMZZ )
Thanks,
CEO