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How to lose jobs
Thread poster: Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 23:44
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
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Mar 9, 2021

I see all those threads about 'how to get jobs', so I thought lets turn the question around: 'How to lose jobs? Well, one way is asking a normal and reasonable rate.

An agency I used to work with all of a sudden stopped sending me jobs. After a year I wrote them with the question why I didn't hear anything from them anymore. The answer was that I was too expensive (wasn't before). The literal answer was (freely translated into English): 'We are the 'victim' of the competition in the
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I see all those threads about 'how to get jobs', so I thought lets turn the question around: 'How to lose jobs? Well, one way is asking a normal and reasonable rate.

An agency I used to work with all of a sudden stopped sending me jobs. After a year I wrote them with the question why I didn't hear anything from them anymore. The answer was that I was too expensive (wasn't before). The literal answer was (freely translated into English): 'We are the 'victim' of the competition in the market. On one side our clients don't want to pay too much, on the other side our translators are asking too much'.

So, they lowered their rates, but I am still in their database, because ..... you never know.

I might not be the cheapest translator around, but I am absolutely not the most expensive one. I am willing to negociate, but that goes only that far. Life in general is getting more and more expensive, everybody is getting an annual raise, but we have to give in. We have bills to pay too. If it goes on like this, translating will become a hobby for which we are getting some pocket money. What to do?

How do you deal with this dilemma?

PS) To avoid the 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. cents conversations, the agency in question is a reputable agency, but jumped under my absolute min. rate, So, I am not talking about the low bottom feeders, we all know those stories by now.



[Edited at 2021-03-09 23:39 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-03-09 23:42 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-03-09 23:42 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-03-09 23:45 GMT]
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Baran Keki
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Tom in London
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Fatine Echenique
 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 02:44
English to Arabic
+ ...
..... Mar 10, 2021

Robert Rietvelt wrote:
How do you deal with this dilemma?


The first responsibility is ours. We ARE the actual service providers; hence, we -and we alone- must set the tone of the industry.
It's your inner voice telling you to "give in", as you phrased it. But, it ain't telling you "for how long"! You give in once, you give in all the way!

When the person is a good translator, they provide quality, streamlined and hassle-free service, and ask for a proportional rate in return.

Do you think that when a company opts for a person who is NOT a good translator, their experience with them will too be quality, streamlined and hassle-free? Even if by a strike of lightning it turns out to be so, do you think it will remain so each and every time? There won't be any problems? Inability to place the order? Severe delays in turnaround? Missing parts? Improvised others? Incoherent rest? At some point the company won't have to face up to an angry client that received a big pile of BS at the hands of their cheap translator?

But, let's argue that the company somehow manages to hit the jackpot landing a cheap translator that DELIVERS (both in terms of quality and timing) each and every time! How long do you think it will be before that cheap translator realises they're being taken to the cleaners by said company? Won't they raise their rate at once, leaving the company with the same old conundrum, i.e. finding a new, actual service provider? Those difficulties don't cause the company time waste and consequently both lost projects and cutback income?

"our clients don't want to pay too much" is such a twisted, fat lie! What is happening is that translation companies have been visioning turning translation into a bulk industry; hence, they are eliciting end clients into thinking they need everything translated, while at the same time furnishing the cost-effective rate for that purpose through cheapening on translator's rate. Companies are NOT reducing their margin, if anything they're increasing it while at the same time bulking on volumes that translate into bigger profits for those companies.

I say let the companies go through all this hassle, for each and every project they need to place, while the good translators among us lie back, sip our favorite drinks and wait for the inevitable (that is, the fall of each and every bad company). During that wait, we simply translate for the good companies/clients, take on another career, or temporarily or permanently retire (for those who can afford it).

You said it yourself, "Life in general is getting more and more expensive", so we have to KEEP UP or GIVE UP, but never GIVE IN!


Tom in London
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Ayoub Hassan
 
Jocelin Meunier
Jocelin Meunier  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 23:44
English to French
+ ...
... Mar 10, 2021

Might not be the best course of action, but I simply "blacklist" agencies that don't accept a reasonable rate. A few years ago, a subtitling company with decent to good rates (that's rare) decided to cut rates so much that they became the second lowest I had ever seen. I stopped doing any work for them ever since and tried to find better client.
You could say that it's not really a solution, but there's not much more we can do (and not much is done to change it).


Dan Lucas
Jo Macdonald
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Fatine Echenique
Adieu
 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:44
Member (2009)
English to German
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Rates vs. income Mar 10, 2021

The problem is, bottom feeders will always find someone who is willing to do the jobs for peanuts. Agencies need to generate income as well. And no, I am not supporting cheap-rate agencies.

A couple of years ago I did a check about the actual prices of an agency I used to work with until they lowered their rates. They used to pay 0.12 euros per word (not the best, but a decent rate), then dropped to 0.07 euros due to - according to them - the increasingly tough competition in the ma
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The problem is, bottom feeders will always find someone who is willing to do the jobs for peanuts. Agencies need to generate income as well. And no, I am not supporting cheap-rate agencies.

A couple of years ago I did a check about the actual prices of an agency I used to work with until they lowered their rates. They used to pay 0.12 euros per word (not the best, but a decent rate), then dropped to 0.07 euros due to - according to them - the increasingly tough competition in the market. Through the backdoor, so to speak, I checked how much they charged their customers, a hefty 0.25 euros per word. Their raised profits, aside from the too low rate they were willing to pay, was reason enough for me to look for other customers.

It is the translator's responsibility to stop the down slide of rates simply by not accepting anything below a certain standard rate.
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Dan Lucas
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ahartje
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Baran Keki
Baran Keki  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 01:44
Member
English to Turkish
Can PMs determine rates? Mar 10, 2021

I had an interesting conversation with a PM last night. I received a 160 word proofreading assignment from an agency (in order to keep this post relevant to your topic: this agency only sends me small proofreading jobs as they find my translation rate 'too high' or another translator's more 'competitive').
They would usually pay a 'minimum fee' (which is a joke really) for this kind of assignments, and I noticed that the initial PO sent by the PM included that rate, but then she had to ch
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I had an interesting conversation with a PM last night. I received a 160 word proofreading assignment from an agency (in order to keep this post relevant to your topic: this agency only sends me small proofreading jobs as they find my translation rate 'too high' or another translator's more 'competitive').
They would usually pay a 'minimum fee' (which is a joke really) for this kind of assignments, and I noticed that the initial PO sent by the PM included that rate, but then she had to change the PO again as she had to change the deadline, and I saw that the second PO included a per word rate (for 160 words) rather than the minimum fee. Well, as you can imagine the per word rate for a 160 word proofreading assignment doesn't warrant the time and trouble for engaging in a 10 minute long email exchange. I asked her why the second PO included a different rate and not the minimum fee, she said "this client no longer pays a minimum fee", well I said this is odd, they always did up until now. And after that she doubled the rate and offered the two thirds of the minimum fee and asked me if "can we agree on this?"
I'm not at all convinced that a client of an agency can determine whether or not the agency can apply a minimum rate. Isn't that up to the agency itself? Can a PM suddenly decide a translator cannot have a minimum fee for particular jobs? Isn't that up to the Vendor Manager (whatever that is)? The whole thing seemed fishy.
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Adieu
 
Maxi Schwarz
Maxi Schwarz  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:44
German to English
+ ...
means, getting better customers Mar 10, 2021

The OP involves no longer getting work from an agency that wants to pay less. If you are providing quality justifying the fees you charge, then the time you don't spend working for this customer frees up your time to work for customers who appreciate the quality you provide. If they are agencies, then they also value giving their end clients quality.

(When I saw the title "how to lose jobs" I expected to see things like; providing a shoddy product, carelessness, not keeping promise
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The OP involves no longer getting work from an agency that wants to pay less. If you are providing quality justifying the fees you charge, then the time you don't spend working for this customer frees up your time to work for customers who appreciate the quality you provide. If they are agencies, then they also value giving their end clients quality.

(When I saw the title "how to lose jobs" I expected to see things like; providing a shoddy product, carelessness, not keeping promises etc.)
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
Jo Macdonald
Jo Macdonald  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 23:44
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
Simple Mar 10, 2021

Clients who want to work with me contact me, we agree on rates and work together.

Anyone looking for a cheaper option will always keep looking and find something cheaper, cheapee, cheapo.
They don't want to work with me, I don't want to work with them.
Simple

Sometimes clients can lose points and end up being declassified from one category to the other, same thing.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Christopher Schröder
Thayenga
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
Philip Lees
 
Peter Shortall
Peter Shortall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Romanian to English
+ ...
Crossroads Mar 10, 2021

A few of my once regular clients have all but dropped me as I refuse to jump on the MT bandwagon, though some take a nuanced approach. They'll still hire me on my pricing terms occasionally, but only for jobs where the document is for some household name company or institution. So some of them, at least, still bother to differentiate according to client expectations. I wonder how much longer that will last.

It's interesting that the agency you mention sees itself, and not translator
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A few of my once regular clients have all but dropped me as I refuse to jump on the MT bandwagon, though some take a nuanced approach. They'll still hire me on my pricing terms occasionally, but only for jobs where the document is for some household name company or institution. So some of them, at least, still bother to differentiate according to client expectations. I wonder how much longer that will last.

It's interesting that the agency you mention sees itself, and not translators, as the victim in all this... typical. It says this is being driven by clients' unwillingness to spend much, yet agencies contribute to the problem by persuading clients that savings can be made by using MT and putting the idea of it into their heads in the first place. I too have noticed the 'domino effect' in recent years. I never worked for mega-agencies, but used to count quite a few medium-sized agencies among my clients. One by one, they have gone downmarket. So it becomes a question of which end of the market you want to be in. There's not so much middle ground any more. And we find ourselves at a crossroads where we are being forced to choose between two directions, neither of which will necessarily lead to survival. But in a way, we can force agencies to choose a direction too, by not offering them high-end quality at low-end rates. We don't have to enable them to enjoy the best of both worlds by straddling both ends of the market.

I had a frank and interesting discussion with a friendly PM at one such medium-sized agency last year. She said her bosses simply wouldn't give her a choice over using MT with 'mainstream' languages, but they did give her more latitude with 'niche' ones. The output of their first attempt at Romanian-English MT, which they sent me to take a look at, was horrific, and I made that point forcefully to the PM when I refused to take the job on. They hadn't even noticed, of course. The PM actually seemed to sympathise with my view and said I was 'lucky' to be able to walk away from MT, which she can't do. Her answer almost made me laugh, because it tragically overlooked the most salient point of all: where else will the likes of me (you know, the people who supply the product that the agency's business depends on) have to walk away to if every other agency follows suit? And every time we do so, we risk losing a future revenue stream, so it takes a certain amount of courage - or is that recklessness?

In case you're wondering how that discussion ended, the PM offered the work to me as an ordinary translation job, and I accepted it. It seems I am not so easily replaced... at the moment. But as I pointed out to her, the behaviour of bosses of agencies such as hers risks locking the market into a death spiral as the cost of living continues to rise and translators start to find that sweatshop rates aren't enough to survive on any more.

I have a couple of other ways to lose jobs to add to the pot: insisting on reasonable payment terms, and standing up for yourself in general. Those cardinal sins can mark you out as a very unsavoury type, depending on who you're dealing with.

So in answer to your question about strategy, the way I'm dealing with this dilemma is by sticking to my guns and not adding fuel to the raging fire of plummeting rates. If the ship that is my translation business does sink beneath the waves one day because of that, then at least I will be doing my very best work when I go down. I still love the job and constantly push myself to learn more. And when I go down, clinging doggedly to the mast, it will be with my head held high, in the knowledge that I fought as hard as I could in the battle to protect myself and my fellow translators from ruin. After that, I don't much care what happens to me as I will have lost the only thing that makes me feel truly alive these days.

[Edited at 2021-03-10 10:09 GMT]
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Robert Rietvelt
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 22:44
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
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Lower rates/CAT tools Mar 10, 2021

I’ve often wondered if the pressure towards lower rates isn’t related to CAT tools?

P.S. I admit I dislike them and I’m one of those dinosaurs who rarely use them (with one exception).


Adieu
Mr. Satan (X)
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:44
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Works the other way for me Mar 10, 2021

Teresa Borges wrote:
I’ve often wondered if the pressure towards lower rates isn’t related to CAT tools?

Clients have previously told me that my willingness to use CAT tools is a point in my favour, and results in more business being sent my way. That keeps me busier, which in turn results in my being able to turn down work I don't like. As far as I can tell, my rates are not particularly low.

Regards,
Dan


Christine Andersen
Kevin Fulton
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Jocelin Meunier
Jocelin Meunier  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 23:44
English to French
+ ...
... Mar 10, 2021

Maxi Schwarz wrote:
If they are agencies, then they also value giving their end clients quality.


Although I believe this is true (to some extent), clients seems to have the upper hand when it comes to prices. Just a week ago, I applied for a literary translation that with an offered rate of 0.05€ per word. So I negotiated just one cent more. Still way below my minimum, but the project was interesting enough to try and not spook them, then I did a sample translation. They replied a few days after saying that my translation was the best they got, but the publisher still chose someone else. My guess is, someone who didn't negociate the rate. This will sound like bragging, but the agency liked my translation so much, they said they wanted me to be their first choice for the next project. I'm sure many other have similar stories and in my case this is not the first time.
The trend seems to be that cheap beats quality, and the end client sets the price.


Fatine Echenique
 
Baran Keki
Baran Keki  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 01:44
Member
English to Turkish
What I don't understand is... Mar 10, 2021

I don't know what your idea of decent rate is or how much OP was getting from that agency before he was considered 'too expensive', but I'm having hard time understanding how a person (the so called 'bottom feeder') working for 0.05 to 0.07 EUR per word could make ends meet in a country like the Netherlands or any EU country unless they're getting another income or have a benefactor of some kind. I heard somewhere that renting a single room in Amsterdam cost something like 600 EUR a week. To kee... See more
I don't know what your idea of decent rate is or how much OP was getting from that agency before he was considered 'too expensive', but I'm having hard time understanding how a person (the so called 'bottom feeder') working for 0.05 to 0.07 EUR per word could make ends meet in a country like the Netherlands or any EU country unless they're getting another income or have a benefactor of some kind. I heard somewhere that renting a single room in Amsterdam cost something like 600 EUR a week. To keep up with such standards of living you have to work yourself to death, translate 5000 words a day or something like that, and I really don't see that many work coming in a language that's spoken only by 20 million people around the world. So it must be very very difficult to be a 'bottom feeder' in a country like the Netherlands or Germany, whereas you can live very comfortably with such rates in a country like Turkey or Argentina.
I also have this notion, and please correct me if I'm wrong: a seasoned native English speaker (say a Romanian to English translator) is likely to command better rates than a non-native English speaker (say an English to Romanian translator), so it's easier for a native English translator to ditch lowly paying agencies and move on to better paying ones. I don't wish to offend or get into argument with anybody here. I just have this gut feeling (I have no evidence to support my claim) that any language pair in which English is the target language pays more than the other way around (I hope this makes sense).
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Peter Shortall
Jorge Payan
 
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:44
Member (2004)
English to Italian
how... Mar 10, 2021

Baran Keki wrote:

I don't know what your idea of decent rate is or how much OP was getting from that agency before he was considered 'too expensive', but I'm having hard time understanding how a person (the so called 'bottom feeder') working for 0.05 to 0.07 EUR per word could make ends meet in a country like the Netherlands or any EU country unless they're getting another income or have a benefactor of some kind.


The reasons you quote. Also, taking on as much work as they humanely can, turning it around very quickly. The result? Very bad quality, but nobody seems to care anymore. We will end up delivering mediocre quality on the long run, since there is no other way around it to be able to earn a decent income and survive. But clients and agencies seem to be blind to this. As long as they are saving money... when they ask me why I'm not accepting a certain rate, I usually reply that I can't guarantee sufficient quality and whoever is saying that, is a liar...

[Edited at 2021-03-10 12:53 GMT]


Tony Keily
 
Tony Keily
Tony Keily
Local time: 23:44
Italian to English
+ ...
MT is not a static factor Mar 10, 2021

MT is evolving and improving, making it attractive in many contexts in a way it wouldn't have been five years ago. There's a risk factor if you're going to use it as the basis for, say, legal jobs, but if the agencies are willing to assume the risk, that's their business. I imagine five years from now, the usefulness of MT as a translation tool will be further augmented.

I've noticed that with quite a few MTPE jobs my per-hour earnings are acceptable (it's up to us to set the terms
... See more
MT is evolving and improving, making it attractive in many contexts in a way it wouldn't have been five years ago. There's a risk factor if you're going to use it as the basis for, say, legal jobs, but if the agencies are willing to assume the risk, that's their business. I imagine five years from now, the usefulness of MT as a translation tool will be further augmented.

I've noticed that with quite a few MTPE jobs my per-hour earnings are acceptable (it's up to us to set the terms and conditions). The real problem is that if a job that was worth two hundred euro a couple of years ago is now worth half of that or less in MTPE fees, that also means that the income to be made by a constant pool of translators is set drop sharply, unless there is an equal increase in demand for translation services, which hardly seems likely.
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Adieu
 
Peter Shortall
Peter Shortall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Romanian to English
+ ...
Directionality and bargaining power Mar 10, 2021

Baran Keki wrote:

I also have this notion, and please correct me if I'm wrong: a seasoned native English speaker (say a Romanian to English translator) is likely to command better rates than a non-native English speaker (say an English to Romanian translator), so it's easier for a native English translator to ditch lowly paying agencies and move on to better paying ones. I don't wish to offend or get into argument with anybody here. I just have this gut feeling (I have no evidence to support my claim) that any language pair in which English is the target language pays more than the other way around (I hope this makes sense).


I absolutely take your point about RO-EN or other language pairs with few native EN speakers, though the way I would describe it is "less difficult" rather than "easier". I'm not a very brave person, you see. Whenever I refuse to take on MTPE, I hold my breath, as I never really expect people to come back to me. So far, they almost always have, but it's something I never take for granted. There are a few other native EN speakers who will take on the challenge, albeit not all successfully - as I found out when I was asked to review a car crash of a RO-EN legal translation last week. On delivering my post-mortem report, I was commissioned to redo the whole thing from scratch. And being a native speaker of English (I won't comment on "seasoned"!!) is only an advantage in this language pair in the eyes of clients who want output that reads like it was written by a native EN speaker. Not all are so fussy, I can assure you. However, it's true that RO-EN is my main source of income, and in fact, it is my saviour these days. Which is good, as I love the language, and improving my ability to use it actively (not that I really need to use it in that way) is one of my main pastimes.

Only today, I had a large RO-EN job cancelled by a Belgium-based outsourcer who assigned the job to me yesterday. "The end client doesn't need the translation any more". Ah, that old standby. If I had a pound... There's always somebody cheaper. But as for pairs where EN is the target language, I think I generally share your gut feeling (for which I can offer no more hard evidence than you can), barring perhaps a few exceptions. English-Irish was a gold mine at one time, by all accounts, and I imagine English to Welsh or Scots Gaelic might be similar cases. Then there are the Scandinavian languages, I don't know about those. But on the whole, yes, your feeling does make sense to me. And like you, I'm not spoiling for an argument on that point, so if anyone knows different, I'm happy to be corrected.

So I'm guessing that you have more bargaining power in TUR-EN than you do in EN-TUR? Because I suspect there won't be many others with your level of English. Feel free to blush


Baran Keki
 
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