Please provide 3 references

Mervyn Henderson wrote:

After all, if they give a glowing report on my work, they might ring me a little later with a job, and I might have to say sorry, no, I'm busy. Then they will maybe sit there wondering whether I'm suddenly unavailable because THEY gave me a good reference.

So I avoid this if I can.

Mervyn

Melina Kajander wrote:
José Henrique, I wonder if you saw my reply above (where I quoted you), before replying..?

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:


The good news is that until found otherwise, I'm not ga-ga yet, as my ideas seem consistent over time!))

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

So I contacted three long-standing clients of mine, told them about it, got their permission, and gave them as references to a few of these agencies. It was a matter of minutes (so it IS automated) after having uploaded my online applications for these clients to receive job-pedding e-mail messages, to the tune of "whatever this person does for you, we can do it better, faster, and cheaper!" These kind clients forwarded such messages to me. Another agency sent my clients a third-degree-type questionnaire on me that would take an average person one hour to answer.

Claudia Alvis wrote:



My main concern about disclosing the names of my past clients was that it might be a nuisance for them, but I didn't imagine the situation you just pictured here, José Henrique. Of course, I don't think ALL agencies use these "marketing practices", but how can we be sure?

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

I keep a strict policy of not revealing my clients' contact information. IMy CV however lists most of my publicly available translations, such as books, films, and web sites.

While "campaigning" - which is the name I give to visiting translation agencies' web sites and filling out their online translator application forms - I ran into a few where the form will not upload unless the reference fields are properly filled in, to the extent of ascertaining that the e-mail does not have the "@" surrounded by anything other than letters and numbers (yep, spaces, brackets, parentheses won't work). Some of them said that they must have such references to keep their ISO certification.

So I contacted three long-standing clients of mine, told them about it, got their permission, and gave them as references to a few of these agencies. It was a matter of minutes (so it IS automated) after having uploaded my online applications for these clients to receive job-pedding e-mail messages, to the tune of "whatever this person does for you, we can do it better, faster, and cheaper!" These kind clients forwarded such messages to me. Another agency sent my clients a third-degree-type questionnaire on me that would take an average person one hour to answer.

Then there is the non-disclosure agreement many clients require the translator to sign before taking any job. Many of these include not disclosing the business relationship with them altogether to anyone. As I understand it, giving them as a reference would constitute a breach to the NDA.

Finally, I could easily set up a numerous pool of established translators who would provide good references one for each other, thus voiding this whole procedure. Some fly-by-nite fake "translation agency" could make a living by not translating anything, but selling online reference services! They would route the questionnaires to the very subject of the "investigation" to fill in, get them back, and forward them to the requestors.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should actually offer this service; I just want to make my point that the whole idea of demanding references sine qua non from translators is pointless.