A few weeks ago, I reached an important step in any freelancer’s career: 1 year of activity! It has been a busy year, but I am proud to be where I stand today. So I thought it was a good time to do a small review and offer some advice that may be useful to young translators.
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Organise
This is the most important lesson I have learnt this year, and probably my first advice to new translators: be organised! Everyone has its method (I know some friends and colleagues don’t organise themselves like me at all), but what matters is that you can keep track of everything quickly and easily. Personally, I have an Excel file in which I list all my projects (clients, wordcounts, dates, languages, etc.) and my invoices, month by month, so that I don’t forget projects when I invoice. That way, I can follow their payment and have an overall view of my activity (Do I do more translation, proofreading, MTPE…? In which language pair do I work more often? etc.). Then, I have a diary in which I write down my ongoing projects and the due dates of my invoices, so that I can notice it immediately if there is any delay. Finally, I recently bought a white board that allows me to make urgent notes and keep them close. This may seem intimidating, but once you have found your method, it should be easy to manage and it saves a lot of time by gathering all the information in a practical way. Another tip: if you lose time with your method and you find it complicated, change it! It’s wrong.
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Check all the information
Second lesson learnt this year: checking everything is very important. For example, when I started to work, I sometimes delivered projects an hour late because I work from the UK, but the client was in France and I looked at the wrong time zone. You shouldn’t be afraid to check the wordcount or the PO either, so that you can quickly notify the client if there is a problem.
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Ask questions
Of course, when you start working, you want to show your (agency or direct) clients that you know what you are doing and that even if you are new in the business, you are indeed a professional. Hence the hesitation sometimes, when you want to ask questions but do not dare for fear of looking like an amateur. This feeling is natural, but acting on it is a mistake. You have to dare asking questions to your client, especially before accepting a project. If you have any doubt (nature of the text, deadline, etc.), do not hesitate to ask for more details before accepting, or you risk getting stuck later. I think it is also something I’ve learnt this year: never accept a project without seeing the text first, or at least a similar one. Indeed, if it eventually turns out to be too difficult for your expertise and you have too many difficulties, it is not good for you or the client.
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Make mistakes
Nobody likes making mistakes, especially when you’re just starting and building your professional image. But mistakes can actually be a good thing. They show you how to do better next time, and if you make sure to learn from them, you will soon find yourself making less and less mistakes. Receiving negative feedbacks never feels great either, but you have to accept it, move on , and, most importantly, build on it to make sure this never happens again.
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Refuse projects
Last but not least, when you’re a new professional taking the plunge at freelancing, you are delighted with every new project received (“Great, an agency finally trusts me!”), and if you receive few projects, you can be tempted to accept them all. However, agencies will not trust you less if you refuse projects, especially in areas in which you’re not an expert. Not everyone can specialise in law or automobile, and it is wiser to refuse to do a translation that an expert or more experienced colleague will do better than to deliver poor quality. Bad work benefits no one. Rejecting offers is not an easy step to take, but you will see: once you start refusing project and see that agencies keep asking you to work with them anyway, you will feel better (I speak from experience!).
To sum things up, starting a freelance career is not simple and requires a lot of patience and efforts, but how satisfying to see that it’s starting to work! So I hope that these small pieces of advice can help new or future translators who choose to dive into this big wonderful adventure.
Camille Gondral 