When I first switched to freelance, I often looked at the resumes of other translators, trying to understand what it should be like to attract the attention of companies or clients. For two years I opened other people's resumes in the hope that now I will see what I’m looking for: a complete, well-written, structured resume written in good English. Such that I wanted to knock him down. Two years have passed - I have not found a single resume. Perhaps the translators with a good resume just do not keep them in the public domain or I just came across unsuccessful options. But for some reason it seems to me that this is partly a problem of the fact that we don’t know how to talk about ourselves and any written communication about work (even such a delayed one and without feedback) baffles us.
I changed my resume several times, supplemented it with new sections, experimented with design, and a year ago I got what I am a little proud of and what I wanted to share.
Format
This is something that almost everyone is slaughtered on, thinking that the main thing is content. Yes, the content is important, but there is always a “but.” My first “but” is pedantry and love for the aesthetics of the text, which partly came to me from the profession. The second is the understanding that there are no trifles in a job search. We know ourselves all our lives, but the recruiter knows us as much as he reads our resume. There is no chance of a mistake.
A study was conducted in which it turned out that recruiters like the candidate more if his resume is harder: on thick paper or a tablet (this is from Talma Lobel 's book “A Warm Cup on a Cold Day” ). So start with the format. A document in DOC / DOCX format on another device may not open or open with slanting text (in general, in my understanding, Word is more of an editing tool). Therefore, it is better to make a resume in Word and convert it to PDF. I did Canva on the site for online layouts - there are different templates and you can find something attractive and edit it there. So that no one copied the text of the resume, I protected the document with a password. It will not save from the most moved, but it will break off the lazy. The only thing I had to download the program was to change the metadata: by default, the title of the resume used the name of the template, so when the resume was opened in a tab, it was not named as I needed. This may seem obvious, but still: you need to name the resume clearly and clearly. Include the name, position, language pair, and the word “resume” or “CV” in the title of the document.
Be sure to check the text for errors. I use Grammarly for this. If in doubt, say so in English or not, you can use Ludwig Guru . It’s best to submit a resume for review to an English-language editor, although a knowledgeable friend can also be shown. I couldn’t get my hands on working with the editor, but I’ll probably give the next option.
Structure
Having dealt with the format, let's move on to the structure. I attached below the "skeleton" of my resume, so that it would be clearer what I will write about.
At the top of the first page you need to specify the name, language pair and position. You can add the time zone, country and city, but without details - no one needs your address, just like the date of birth and marital status.
The "body" of a resume usually starts with the "objective" section. It is customary to write there something like “I want to cooperate with your company” or “I want to contribute to the development of your brand”. I don’t really like this approach, so my resume begins with a brief information section about me (profile). For me, this is the section where I can be as straightforward as possible and tell the client why it is worth choosing me. I think this is the most difficult thing for many of us: to evaluate and "sell" ourselves. The main thing is not to go too far and not to deceive: nonprofessionalism will still come out anyway. Usually I write that I worked at all stages of translation projects - from creating a glossary to testing, won translation competitions, is very attentive and love my work. Everyone can find something that characterizes him as a specialist: responsibility, experience, participation in the community, creativity, communication with clients, advanced training, etc.
Then I have a section of key achievements, under which I highlighted a good part of the first page. You can combine it with work experience and briefly describe the achievements separately for each position. If there is no experience or achievement, education comes here (about it below). By accomplishments, I mean, rather, the results of work on each project or position. We are not the most “pioneering” profession, so you should not stupor in this place and think that you did not succeed. Perhaps you translated a website from scratch or created a style guide for a new client, or worked for several years on one project and you know best how to translate user manuals, or translate 2,000 words every day and answer questions from other translators after work forum. Look at your experience from the outside and describe the main stages of the journey in several sentences. No one expects translators to increase sales or increase the number of users of the application. Talk about small-town joys, they, in turn, will tell a lot about you. I wrote that practically alone I translated a large messenger application, helped the manager in project management and on several marketing projects was always a priority as a translator.
Next is the work experience. Nothing special is needed here: the period of work, position, place of work or the company with which we collaborated. You can add responsibilities and types of projects and content that you work with. It is worth saying that it makes sense to write the name of the company if you collaborate with it regularly. I have a lot of agreements with different translation agencies, but most of these agreements have not led to any projects. I think this is a common situation for freelancers. If you can’t mention the names or these are ordinary people and small companies, you can always indicate them descriptively (this rule, by the way, applies to all sections where clients are mentioned): a freelance translator for lawyers and law firms, a home appliance market and a recognition software developer text.
For experience comes education. As I said, it can be written at the very beginning of the resume, if there is something to surprise or little experience. I just wrote the name of my university, department and year of graduation, and the same for the university where I studied under the student exchange program. I also wrote about the diploma, but I do not think that it has weight. Do not worry if there is no specialized education - you can be a good translator without him (as well as worthless with a master's degree in translation). The main thing in this case is to correctly place the emphasis: on experience, personal qualities and the desire to work.
The main part of my resume ends with two sections - awards and advanced training courses (CPD courses). I included several online courses that I took (for example, a very simple Localization Essentials from Google ), Russian language courses at the Literacy Center, and a Creative Writing School non-fiction course. I have nothing directly related to the transfer, several times I was going to go short, but did not have time to save up money or simply forgot. Of the courses that I watched: courses at the School of Audiovisual Translation , Russian-English translation at the Russian Translation School , where Palazhchenko teaches, courses at the school and translation bureau Alliance PRO, and courses by Gora Perevoda . If someone is interested in contests, there are much fewer, especially regular ones: the Sensum de Sensu young translators competition, the ProZ 's competitions, the Bakanov School literary translation contest, the winners of which become participants in the school - they are invited to translate books.
I found the idea to divide the page into two parts interesting: it visually looks nice and you can separate some disparate facts from more important information. Therefore, I gave the narrow column to the left under the following:
- Contact information - mail, links or hyperlinks to ProZ, LinkedIn profiles and the website, if any. I don’t give my phone number anywhere, because I can hardly imagine how I will discuss working issues by phone. If you have the opposite, then it makes sense to indicate the number, of course.
- Services (services) - this can be translation, editing, localization, transcription.
- Specialization (expertise or specialization) - marketing, medicine, IT, law, oil and gas, etc.
- Membership in professional organizations (professional memberships) - ProZ , SPR , IAPTI , ATA , ITI and others. Probably, it makes sense for more mature translators to join them. First, everywhere there are certain requirements and something like an exam; secondly, membership is everywhere paid. But of course, this is not necessary. I regard this as a good confirmation of my experience and reliability.
- Major clients - here you can write the names of translation agencies, names of direct or indirect clients. It is worth recognizing that this is a controversial practice, because almost always there is an agreement on non-disclosure of information with the client. Therefore, everyone must decide for himself what information to include. From my own experience I can say that both Russian and non-Russian translators often mention the names of clients in the resume, but I have never seen such translators in the well-known translators.
- Certificates (sertifications) about language skills, translation tools. For example, I have a certificate of a free online test in English English First and certificates for machine translation editing and SDL tools. I received the latter when I worked in the SDL, so I don’t know whether it is possible to donate them for free, and if it’s paid, is it necessary at all?
- Languages you own. I always indicate the level according to the usual scheme: A1 / A2 - beginner, B1 / B2 - intermediate, C1 / C2 - advanced. Certificate of knowledge of the language can be specified here.
- CAT tools you can use.
- References - The contact information of those people who can give you a recommendation. I don’t know if my clients wrote to anyone at least once, but this column is found in all profiles of large companies.
What should be behind the resume
I am for the summary to have a minimum of water. If there is little or no experience at all, it is better to focus on education and volunteer projects, for example, translation for TED . I have no other advice, because I started working as a trainee-translator who did not need experience.
For translators with experience. Think about what the resume lacks and what can be improved. Summarize the experience. Find the courses you need, take part in contests, join the translation organization. Try to understand your place in the profession and share your vision with future clients. From my own experience I can say that a good resume really opens the door for you. Go ahead.