The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2017 - 21

FEATURE

BY ALAINA BRANTNER

equivalent plus a minimum of two years
of documented experience in translating,
or... at least five years of documented
professional experience in translating."3
The International Organization for
Standardization's ISO 17100 certification
is based on the language of prEN
15038.4 Notably, firms maintaining this
certification must have documented
processes for the verification and
maintenance of records of professional
competence.5 According to ISO 3.1.8,
further requirements include processes
for recording ongoing updates to linguist
and staff competencies, and highlighting
the importance of continuing education in
language services.
Whether or not firms intend to pursue
certification such as ISO's, vendor
managers can benefit from an awareness
of the standards and certification
requirements established by large
standardization and certifying bodies. This
information can be a great knowledge
base for initiating recruitment efforts and
designing vendor recruitment processes.

Key Components of Successful
Translator Recruitment
A well thought out recruitment process contributes to providing firms and their
clients and target users with the implicit peace of mind that comes with a
consistent translation product.

A

fundamental tenet of language
services is that an organization's
translation product will only be
as good as the translator who provides
the target content. To provide culturally
and technically appropriate translations,
translators must have a wide range of
knowledge and capabilities, reflected in
the standards issued by such organizations
as ASTM International and the European
Committee for Standardization. As
indicated in the ASTM's "Standard Guide
for Quality Assurance in Translation"-
"Proficiency in two languages is
important, but does not necessarily
guarantee translation competence."1
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According to ASTM, source and target
language, translation, subject matter, and
text types are among the competencies
necessary to carry out translation,
and firms can use such indicators as
certifications and degrees, experience,
references, and sample translations to
determine if a candidate has the required
competencies.2 In European Standard
prEN 15038, the European Committee for
Standardization adds research, cultural,
and technical (translation technology)
competencies to those listed by ASTM.
These competencies are obtained
through "formal higher education in
translation ... a university degree or

TRANSLATOR DIRECTORIES:
AN ESSENTIAL RECRUITMENT TOOL
When recruiting translators in new
language pairs or specializations,
vendor managers have a variety of
online directories at their disposal to
identify candidates. Being aware of the
characteristics, functionality, and size of
directories not only speeds up recruitment,
but also aids in the design of languageor specialization-specific recruitment
processes. This awareness also helps
vendor managers put steps in place to
mitigate the risks associated with carrying
out recruitment primarily online, among
them identifying the best talent available
among thousands of search results (in
which all sorts of big claims are made
about capabilities) and weeding out any
translator scammers. (Joseph Wojowski's
article, "On 'Lying Through Their Teeth':
Identifying Translation Scams," offers
great insights on translator scammers and
precautions one can take to avoid them.6)
As a vendor manager, I prefer to start
my own recruitment activities with ATA's
Directory of Translators and Interpreters
for several reasons-the overall focus of
which is to set my recruitment efforts
American Translators Association

21
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2017
