The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2021 - 24

degree programs that
language professionals can
take advantage of to keep
their skills current and earn
official recognition of their
specializations.
Joining Industry
Check Out ATA's Inside Specialization Podcast!
Inside Specialization is a new feature of The ATA Podcast
that focuses on specialization. Each episode tackles the
" what, why, and how " of a particular field with a seasoned
expert. Listeners learn about typical work translators and
interpreters in that field do and the skills they need, plus
the pros and cons of the job and the types of clients those
experts work with. There are loads of personal stories and
recommendations for getting started. Join us for monthly
episodes-it's an adventure you won't want to miss! Check
out these episodes!
Episode 61: Inside Specialization-Technical Translation
www.atanet.org/podcast/e61-inside-specialization-technicaltranslator
Episoide
59: Inside Specialization-Educational
Interpreting and Translation
www.atanet.org/podcast/e59-inside-specialization-educationalinterpreting-and-translation
Episode
57: Inside Specialization-International
Development
www.atanet.org/podcast/e57-inside-specialization-internationaldevelopment
Episode
55: Inside Specialization-Court Interpreting
www.atanet.org/podcast/e55-inside-specialization-court-interpreting
In addition to Inside Specialization, make sure to peruse the
many excellent episodes available from The ATA Podcast at
www.atanet.org/news/the-ata-podcast!
Associations and Attending
Events: Specialized
translators typically
belong to one or more
non-translation industry
associations or groups.
In addition to industry
publications, associations
are an amazing forum
for keeping up to date on
industry trends, networking
with other specialists, and
passively marketing your
services. Very often, you
might be the only language
professional at a conference
of 1,000 biochemists,
accountants, or chief
financial officers, putting you
in a unique position to talk
about what you do and show
genuine interest in what your
peers are doing, too.
Creating a Specialist
Network: Your specialized
peers are also an invaluable
resource for maintaining and
growing your specialization.
When you have a network
of colleagues who are all
reading, learning, and
growing in your field, you
can leverage their expertise
and knowledge and work
together to make your
projects even better-and
delight your clients.
The Benefits of
Specialization
Specializing produces
many benefits. For starters,
a 2020 survey by Inbox
Translations found that
specialized translators are
24 The ATA Chronicle | September/October 2021
able to charge rates that are
on average 25% higher than
their unspecialized peers.4
However, the benefits aren't
merely monetary. Here are
some that we've experienced.
Your specialized
peers are also an
invaluable resource
for maintaining
and growing your
specialization.
Efficiency: Specialists
work smarter, not harder.
They have enough
familiarity with the subject
matter, document types,
terminology, and current
trends in their fields that
they spend less time looking
up unfamiliar words or
concepts and can instead
focus on putting words to
paper (or, in most of our
cases, words to screen).
This can result in higher
margins, either due to
higher rates, being able to
fit more work into a typical
workday, or both.
Quality: Specialists have the
expertise they need to talk to
the authors of the documents
they translate as peers. This
means they not only know
how the text should sound
in the target language,
but they can also help
document authors pick out
inconsistencies, term issues,
misspelled words, logical
flaws, and more. Specialists
have the credentials to work
more like partners than
providers, which results in
higher quality in both the
source and target languages.
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