For many people, finding work can turn into a full-time job. This is especially true for recent graduates and professionals looking to enter new sectors. One of the most common dilemmas is joining a company for the first time. Applicants, who are keen to work, send their academic and personal details to companies but often come across a major hurdle: several years of experience as a key requirement. It’s a clear catch-22: you can’t find work without experience, but you can gain experience without work. While we shouldn’t generalize, it is true that this continues to be a common issue. It seems that some companies are reluctant to invest in training, “from the ground up”, a profile lacking in professional experience that shows potential, clearly oblivious to the advantages for both parties (motivated and versatile candidates who are willing to learn, the option of training them directly for a specific role adapted to the company, etc.). This causes frustration among new applicants, who find it hard to access first-time job opportunities without having any practical experience beyond internships, which include some training programs. Needless to say, this is also an issue in the translation industry.
The world of language services is highly competitive, since the level of qualification of people working in this sector is constantly increasing. Likewise, the products they offer must be of the highest quality, and some companies are hesitant to put in the time required to train this type of profile. As a result, these profiles must find another way to gain experience and find a footing in this industry. Many of them turn to volunteering.
In general, volunteering is an altruistic activity in which a service is provided without necessarily benefitting economically, in order to help an entity dedicated to humanitarian or outreach work. More specifically in the translation world, this option entails several linguistic services: translation, revision, correction, subtitling, drafting, et. for an organization. Although the volunteer is not paid, it is an opportunity to build up proven experience for future job applications. In addition, it is often the translator who selects which materials to translate from a variety of available documents, meaning that they have the option to focus on a specific specialty. Generally, the work completed by inexperienced translators is revised by more experienced translators so that the final quality is not compromised. It is also a great way to find out more about the translation industry, CAT tools, deadlines, multidisciplinary documents, terminology preferences and all the other aspects that make up the day-to-day of our profession, in addition to the satisfaction of collaborating with organizations dedicated to combating difficult situations.
The question now is, where can we find this type of voluntary work? The options are limitless. There are portals aimed exclusively at this type of pro bono work, but there are also general pages that provide the opportunity to participate as a content localizer and, of course, pages with specific content. Below you will find a small selection of opportunities.
TRANSLATORS WITHOUT BORDERS
To speak about volunteer translation is to speak about the work of TWB, an American NGO. It is a language service provider for humanitarian organizations that need to adapt their materials to different languages. Translators contribute by “donating words”, and they have reached the milestone of 50 million words, which have gone to Médecins du Monde, UNICEF and Handicap International, among many others. There is a wide variety documents, from technical reports to crisis response materials for organizations that respond to emergencies around the world, as well as articles and interdepartmental notices. TWB is an option full of possibilities for all types of profiles, whatever your reasons for getting involved.
WIKIPEDIA
This famous and divisive information resource is also a source of volunteering opportunities for translators. The platform encourages the participation of users who are proficient in several languages when localizing their content into one of the 250 languages with which it works. It is important to remember that, while the choice of article is entirely up to the translation, it is always advisable to have basic knowledge of the field or take the time to fully research it. Wikipedia is aware of the importance of publishing quality translations and to this end, they have published a number of guides to help its contributors to localize content. These guides set out a series of legal concepts, break down the translation process into steps, discuss essential computer programs and share tips so that the translation work is performed smoothly and without errors.
GLOBAL VOICES
Global Voices is a large community formed by content creators, journalists, translators, scholars and activists for human rights that is mainly focused on gathering, verifying and translating news reports and stories as a free press organization. Its mission is to find the most powerful and important stories from marginalized and underrepresented communities. In their own words: “they speak out against online censorship and support new ways for people to access the Internet”. They are currently looking for authors to provide information about situations from around the globe, especially those that are marginalized or underrepresented in traditional media, translators and new members, which currently include The Guardian,PRI.org, the BBC and The Economist. They also have several resources to help translators in their work.
The list of options is endless, so we recommend looking at other sources such as this article or this publication, where you will find other resources, and selecting the one that meets our needs.
Everyone’s experience in finding paid work in the translation sector is different. But there is always a proactive way to open doors and, in this case, contribute to humanitarian initiatives that help make this world a better and more interconnected place.
Image ref.: https://www.wallpaperbetter.com/es/search?q=trabajo+en+equipo