Your portfolio as a translator is a document that contains a selection of your professionally translated texts and it is one of the best examples of what your potential clients should expect if they decide to hire you. Although most of the clients will ask for a small sample text translation, before hiring you, portfolio is great for determining if you are the right person for the job.
The online portfolio is great for showing off your skills and expertise in certain areas you are specialised in.
How should it look,? What should it contain?
Formatting
Each text sample in the portfolio should be short and interesting to read. Pieces with more than 500 words will bore potential clients and make them skip big parts of the document, and therefore not realise what are your best skills. In translator’s portfolio only professional looking fonts should be used, together with standard font size and color, without photos, clip art, emoticons etc.
Potential clients should be able to focus on your translating skills, not on fancy lettering. Source and target text should be next to each other preferably on the same page
*Make sure to check all the links inside the document, broken links in portfolio are highly unprofessional and unuseful.
Content
Portfolios shouldn’t contain a pile of randomly selected translations, it should be examples of very narrow and highly specialized texts that will promote your expertise in the best possible way. These translations should emphasize your specialisation in one field and they should be the translations that you are particularly proud of. You shouldn’t mix different specialties in one portfolio, instead you can make several ones, specialized for each of your areas of expertise.
If some of your clients allow you to place their ordered translations in your portfolio, you can also point out the source of original text (reference them). If the translations are done for some famous company or individual and you get their approval, referencing them will add more credibility and a sense of finesse and experience to your portfolio.
When using online texts as samples, you should also add the source where you found the original text.
Remember not to violate copyright laws and if the text you want to translate is protected by Creative Commons or any other license, do everything to give the proper attribution to the text author, including contacting an author and asking for permission if necessary.
Where to Share It?
Your CV/ cover letter should contain the link to your online portfolio. You should also send it to every potential client that contacts you and it should be wide available for download on your web site, if you have one. In addition to all this leave a link to your translator’s portfolio on all online translator market places, where you have a profile and all other freelance networks. Don’t forget to share your portfolio on social networks,because good social media strategy can bring you more clients. Linkedin network is the best for this kind of promotion, but Facebook, Google+ and even Twitter can also be very useful.
How to Draw Traffic to Your Portfolio?
Sharing your portfolio on social networks is just the first step in attracting more potential clients. Your portfolio should be regularly updated, and every update should be shared with your audience. Each post that follows your portfolio should have a short personal note and it should be thoroughly analyzed in terms of its reach and the engagement.
As we said in the previous paragraph, another great place to promote your portfolio is your company’s website. It should be SEO optimized, well-designed and it should also have fresh and high quality content. Placing your website in first pages of Google search will drastically increase the number of potential clients who are going to see your portfolio and hire you.
What Else Should Your Portfolio Contain?
Good portfolio could also contain all necessary personal information, and some more experienced translators with already developed translation companies could also place their company logo inside the document. Translator’s comments can also be very useful addition that will present your working methods to possible clients. These comments should come after every short translation and should contain few lines about each translation and some special methods you used while completing the task etc.
Good portfolio is the basic tool for presenting your skills and each translator should have at least one document like this.
Your Unique Value Proposition
You might find that a term such as UVP sounds a bit out of place in a module on translation in practice, but let me tell you it isn’t! Your Unique Value Proposition is just a business way of talking about a concise, clear statement that explains what you offer, why your clients should hire you, and how you are different from the competition.
https://atasavvynewcomer.org/2017/09/05/branding-create-professional-portfolio/
- What exactly do you offer as a translator? This could be your language combination, a specific area of specialisation, or any additional services such as copywriting or proofreading.
- What skills, knowledge or professional background make you special as a translator? If – as well as a translator – you have a background in a particular industry, you should include this information here.
- Why should clients do business with you and not someone else? Think about your main strengths.
Your bio
In a previous section of the Gaining Experience strand, you worked on preparing your CV. Now, considering your overall experience and the paragraph you’ve drafted about your Unique Value Proposition, let’s have a look at how you could write a short paragraph about yourself. Having a bio is very useful, as you can use it to briefly introduce yourself when approaching a new client, or on any social media professional profile you want to create. If you write an article in a professional association’s publication, they will also require a bio. It is not a static text, as you can adapt it to each specific circumstance, and it will change with time, but it is useful to have a ‘master’ version that you can tweak as necessary. This short bio should only be about 300 words, so it is important that it only includes your most relevant experience and skills.
Your tagline
You might have noticed that some translators also have a ‘tagline’ – a short sentence to summarise their expertise. These could be things like:
- ‘Professional translation services by an industry expert’
- ‘Translations you can trust’
- ‘Specialised in IT, business and financial documents’.
No comments:
Post a Comment