This section relates to setting up a proz profile as an online resume.
As I have explained above, a good way to show off your translation talents is by linking to Word documents through a bulleted list.
In Word, create a two columned table, showing the source text on the left, and the target/translated text on the right, as shown in this image below.
A well formatted translation sample, with source and target text lined up in a two column table.
Microsoft Word is very prevalent in the translation industry, so you can be certain that your potential customers will have this installed on their computer. If not, OpenOffice is a free software which can open such documents.
Make sure the column height of individual rows in your Word table are not too high, so that you can line up the text properly. Start another row (pressing TAB is an easy way to accomplish that) and copy your source and target/translated text into the relevant cells so that they line up nicely and make it easier for your potential clients to assess your abilities.
Work while you travel – Greece coastline
Even if they are not able to assess your abilities by understanding both languages well enough, just setting things up like this will make you look much more professional and capable.
To post your samples online so that you can link to them, you can post them on my site as mentioned above, or try something like google docs/drive. You can upload your Word or ODT (OpenOffice) docs to their site, or create them online by simply copy/pasting the text into tables created in the same manner. Be sure to make your docs public, so that others can view them, get the proper public link to link to, and test it thoroughly in other browsers not logged into google to make sure everything works properly.
When creating your samples, you will want to choose subjects that are not so simple, and different types of subjects. If you have absolutely no experience translating and therefore are not able to draw from your previous work to produce samples, I definitely advise that you take the time to find some text on the internet or elsewhere and produce your own samples. Not only will it make your profile and yourself look much more professional and legitimate, but it will actually give you some practice. Do not start practicing once you get actual work from a client. You will surely make errors, because this profession is hardly as simple as it may appear, and then you will only receive a black mark next to your name in their database, and it will be much more difficult to get more work from them in the future. Which means that any time or money you may have invested to get your foot into the door of a new agency will only turn into bad advertising, and a waste. Study my tips how to provide a perfect translation, practice using the different software, get a feel for how you can find the correct terminology through internet research or third party consultation, and present yourself in a good light before launching into actual, paid work.
Further reading in Translation Tips: How to Format in Microsoft Word – Keyboard Shortcuts
- Translation memory software - August 4, 2018
- Work on an older, slower computer - August 3, 2018
- Machine translation - August 3, 2018
