Pros
as a freelance translator, you are one of their 'worker bees 'and they hire you to complete translations remotely. Pro: can work from home.
Cons
Where do I begin. *sigh* 1) The requested turnaround times are unreasonable and do not allow time for proofreading your own work. The "work flow" process goes like this: PM sends out mass email to translators. Translators reply if available. Magically the PM chooses who they wish to give the job to. They give you the deadline. Translator translates the doc and returns it. Doc goes to proofreader. Doc goes to QA. If there are questions, Doc goes back to translator. Then doc goes to client. NOTE: IF their deadlines were more reasonable, they would not require a 10-step process, the client would get the results faster, the middle men would be eliminated because there would be fewer errors to begin with...because the deadline was reasonable in thef irst place. 2) the pay is incredible. Typical to be offerred .04/word (come on!) which is not even minimum wage by the time you consider all of the investments on your end (internet fees, software, taxes, etc). Plus, we're the specialists! We are the REASON the company exists! If it were not for us they would not HAVE any translations! But they wont even offer a living wage. 3) I am told (after the fact) that there is a very high turnaround in the project managers. The PMs themselves are not language specialists and while they say they have a "budget" for each project, they often will incraese the word count or the "deadline" upon request. Oh really? So then this "rush job" of 20,000 words that you need done in 3 minutes isnt REALLY a rush job after all?? I have since moved to working w/one of their competitors: professional, higher pay, NORMAL deadlines and PMs who are pleasant and a delight to work with. IF YOU ARE A TRANSLATOR, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON TRANS P!
