First, it’s good to have a presence on major professional websites or social media. When hiring someone, it is common for managers or recruiters to look at the potential candidate online. It’s a way to get a preliminary look at a candidate and really get to know them better before deciding on whether or not to proceed with the hiring process.

Next, it is good to keep yourself familiar with a variety of different skills. If you have many different skills and are adept at all of them, then you can market yourself as someone who can work in a lot of different fields. However, it’s important if you could commit everything to one field and then promote yourself that way, as someone who is highly experienced in the specific field. Sometimes, recruiters look for people who have the most experience in the field, so if you show that you have more experience than other people in the field, you will be more attractive as a prospective translator or interpreter.

Also, it is important to maintain good connections with the people you work with. Make sure to be as courteous as possible and project yourself as a professional translator or interpreter. Also be sure to make friends in the industry. If you have a network of colleagues, then you can help each other find work. There are a lot of times when translators or interpreters might be too busy with an assignment they are currently working on to take any new client requests. In this situation, they try to refer a colleague, and you might be able to be that colleague that they refer. If that happens, you will establish a connection with a new client, and maybe be able to connect with even more clients afterwards.

Growing your presence as an interpreter or translator is not something that you can just do overnight, it takes time and effort. But if you are able to grow your presence, then it will benefit you in ways that you might not expect. You will reach many new clients, and build your own network of clients that know who you are and would love to work with you on future assignments.

To keep an online presence. This might seem a little strange, but think about it this way: if you are looking to accept a car ride from someone, would you go with the person who has a five star rating, many customer reviews, a profile picture, and a little blurb about who they are? Or would you go with the person who has no profile picture, no rating, no reviews, and no profile picture? Obviously, you would go with the former. You would have many reservations about going with someone you have no information about. It’s the same thing with work. Having an online presence will help people who don’t even know you quickly get a feel for who you are and how you operate. Just make sure that you keep your presence online professional and active.

With a good online presence, you can also network. Networking is incredibly important for many reasons, but the most important one goes back to the previous example of a driver who you can easily read up about versus a complete stranger. When you submit your resume and cover letter to a company, especially a big company, they have to make a decision based off of the information you give them. If you don’t give them enough information, they will give the position to the person who they have a better picture of. Networking helps to get your foot in the door since you will have an opportunity to display who you are in a different, more informal setting. Networking will also help get your name into conversations making it easier for prospective clients or companies to identify you in the midst of other applicants.

You should be sure to start off small and get as much experience as you can under your belt. You would be surprised what an opportunity here or there will be able to get you in the future. Just be sure that when you do the work, you always treat it with as much care as possible. This means taking the time to ensure you have no errors, have translated everything perfectly and do not have any formatting issues. Just in case, you should have someone proofread your translation. Even if you are confident with the translation you have put out, it would be a good idea to have a pair of fresh eyes go over the work that you have done. They might have a new perspective or be able to point out some simple errors that you might have glossed over.

The last tip for this post is to set aside a specific time to do your translation. This might seem simple, but you do not want to be spending too much time or too little time on the translation. It is better to have a set time to work on the assignment than to just do it whenever you feel like it. With a schedule, you will be more committed to finishing the job, and will have clear boundaries where you can ensure you are not interrupted or distracted.

Starting out as a translator or interpreter is simultaneously exciting and frightening, but no matter where you start, you are sure to end in a good position if you persist. These tips are to provide a good starting point as well as a good base to build off of. We hope this helps anyone looking to break into the industry.