HOW WE WORK WITH OUR PARTNERS
In the translation industry, LKT has a unique model – a team of fully qualified and trained German>English translators whose daily work focuses primarily on the job of translation itself, and revising one another’s translations. Our in-house team is the core of our operations, but in order to fulfil demand from our customers, we also rely on a pool of trusted external suppliers, as we recognise that the industry contains many talented professionals who supply their services on a freelance basis.
Early in the development of our model, we identified a stumbling block in the industry that is undoubtedly familiar to these many freelancers operating within it: if you’re a fresh face in the industry, how do you get the experience that will allow you to gain the customers? Even for those armed with languages degrees and postgraduate translation qualifications, the actual business of translation can be alien territory. Our Translator Academy emerged in an effort to provide a solution: over the years of its existence, we have taken on new recruits fresh from university and developed them into professionals in a commercial environment through a system of continued professional development.
NOT IN-HOUSE? NO PROBLEM
Through the in-house team we have developed over the years as a result, we’ve realised that we have a valuable stock of knowledge that we’re keen to share beyond the boundaries of the team itself. We’ve chosen to do this in two ways: by giving our pool of freelancers support and CPD opportunities wherever possible, and by offering our Translator Academy model to potential new external partners where it’s feasible for us to do so. Read on to find out more about each aspect.
OUR EXTERNAL PARTNERS
If you’re already part of our established pool of suppliers, you’ll be familiar with our working model. But because we’re a team made up entirely of professional translators, we do more than just manage your projects. Whether you need advice about something linguistic or you’d like more in-depth feedback about your performance, we’re here to help wherever we can. Here are some examples of how we work with our external partners:
- Our in-house team’s main activity is translation – it’s what we do every day, so if you’ve come across a tricky sentence or just want a second opinion on something you’ve formulated, we’d be delighted to help and are always on the other end of an email. Drop the person dealing with your job a line and they’ll be able to give you their input or even put your question out to the rest of the team.
- As translators, we also know that CAT tools can sometimes throw up tricky problems too. Often these are fixable without having to go back to the customer – as a team, we’ve encountered and solved all kinds of problems over the years and know that we can ask each other as a first port of call if an issue raises its head. Similarly, we’re happy to give our input on any issue you might have come across – and if we can’t resolve it ourselves, we’ll go back to the customer without delay.
- We process many jobs on a TEP basis, which means that you might find one of our in-house team ends up revising your work once you deliver it to us. If you’d like more feedback about a job of yours that we’ve revised, we’ll be happy to discuss this with you and compile as much information as we can to give you more of an insight.
- As an external partner, you’ll already know that we have a stock of internal CPD resources that we’ve compiled from events such as our in-house LK Team Days – known as our CPD store. If you’re looking for style tips, CAT tool shortcuts or other useful advice, stop by and see how our resources might be able to help.
- Finally, our joint LK Team Days are now an established event in our calendar and are designed to extend the CPD opportunities that we devise in-house to our external partners. Come along and benefit from a day where you can gain more insights into translation-related subjects and get to know us better!
TRANSLATOR ACADEMY FOR POTENTIAL NEW PARTNERS
As our team has grown to include both in-house staff and suppliers, we’ve chosen to roll out our in-house Translator Academy model to potential new external partners working from German to English, giving those new to the industry this same kind of mentoring without requiring them to join our in-house team. We believe that this will provide another avenue for fresh faces to gain that much-needed experience of the industry, as well as assisting us in fulfilling ever-increasing demand from our customers. If you are new to the translation business, this could be for you and we’d be delighted to discuss things further – see below for how to contact us.
What to expect – and what we’re looking for
- You’ll be assigned live German>English projects from our customers under similar conditions to our existing pool of suppliers, with full specifications including CAT tool settings and reference materials
- All jobs will undergo a full revision process, in which an experienced member of our in-house team will revise your work and compile a detailed set of feedback on aspects such as style, terminology and customer specifications
- This same member of our in-house team will act as your mentor and, in addition to compiling feedback, will be available to answer questions at any time during the course of a live project – whether you’d simply like their input on a sentence or need them to pass queries on to a customer
- Your progress will be tracked using a scoring system developed in-house, and you will be given regular feedback on the overall picture of your progress so that you know how you are developing and which areas you need to work to improve
- You will ultimately have the opportunity to transition into a fully fledged member of our pool of trusted suppliers, allowing you to work independently and deliver projects without the need for a second person to revise them
- We have designed this programme with new translators in mind, so we don’t expect you to have industry experience. However, we will expect you to submit all of the usual information you’d provide when applying for freelance work in the form of a CV listing your qualifications, experience, equipment, and so on
- You should keep us updated regularly about your availability, so that we can be in touch with you if we have questions about a project or need to know what capacity you have available
- You should show a willingness to take feedback on board and be open to learning opportunities
- A valid licence for SDL Studio and an Across Translator Edition installation would be an advantage but are not essential
Please note that our ability to accept applications to join our external Translator Academy will depend on the availability and commitments of our in-house team at the time of submission
