How to Find Thai Translation Jobs?
Do you know? In the United States alone, 59 million people work as freelancers in 2020, compared to 53 million in 2014. The figure speaks for itself. More people all over the world are choosing to work as freelancers. The translation industry is not an exception to this trend.
When becoming a freelance translator, the question of how to find clients is always a big concern, especially for freshers. Although in this post, we will focus on tips to find Thai translation jobs for Thai freelance translators, some of the practices can be applied to many other languages.
1. Prepare Yourself with Good Skills and Certification
Before starting the hunt for Thai translation jobs, make sure you have what it takes to become a Thai translator. To be more specific, you must have proper skills, certification, and experience to get hired and be able to handle a Thai translation project.
Relevant Certificates
Just because you fluently speak two languages (one of which happens to be Thai) does not mean you have the ability to work on a Thai translation project (and trust us, no client is willing to put their trust in a non-certificated and no-experience translator). Although qualifications and certificates can not tell everything about a translator’s ability, they are must-have prove to get you through the scanning CV round before you get closer to a Thai translation job.
Being a native Thai is a prerequisite for a professional Thai translator. What’s more, you need a degree in Thai language/translation as well as proper training in a specific industry. For example, if you want to become a medical Thai translator, besides mastering the Thai language, you need to have a background in medical-related fields (either through taking courses or work experience).
In case you hop into the language industry from another field, don’t forget to take translation courses and get certificates. You can check out some training courses for Thai translators and interpreters from the Thai Translator and Interpreter Association of Thailand.
Must-Have Skills
It goes without saying that in order to work as a Thai translator, you must be fluent in at least one foreign language. Years of study and constant training are required to achieve a high level of language proficiency for a translator. What’s more, a Thai translator must not only be fluent in a foreign language but also have good language skills in the Thai language in order to convert words between two languages accurately while conveying the appropriate messages and tones.
As language and culture go hand in hand, you can’t work as a Thai translator without being aware of Thai culture. To avoid making costly mistakes, you should constantly gain deeper insights into both the Thai culture and the source language’s culture.
Technology has become an indispensable part of the translation industry. Rather than being threatened by the rapid development of machine translation and other advanced technology, translators should make use of tools to improve translation flow and accuracy. To meet clients’ deadlines, you should improve your work efficiency through the support of translation tools such as CAT Tools, online proofreading, OCR, and QA tools. The ability to fluently use these supporting tools for Thai translation projects has become a standard for Thai translators.
Work Experience
It is obvious that the more experience you have in translating documents into Thai, the higher your chance of getting more Thai translation jobs and higher rates is. What’s about freshers? It is normal for new Thai translators to struggle to find paid work at first because clients are unlikely to entrust their projects to translators with no or little experience.
You can begin with unpaid translation projects for organizations such as the United Nations, Translators Without Borders, or small local events. The main goal is to assist you in gaining real-world work experience in translating Thai content and building your portfolio. After each project, you should also request testimonials from your clients to attest to your abilities.
2. Platforms to Find Thai Translation Jobs
Once you have all the needed certificates and skills in Thai translations, let’s search for Thai translation jobs. Being a freelance Thai translator means you can serve clients anywhere in the world without having to travel there. Thus, you should make the most out of all Internet platforms to find translation jobs.
Social Media Groups
First, you need to build a strong professional LinkedIn profile to expand your networks, get updated on the latest trends in the language industry as well as showing your knowledge and experience. From these activities, you can get closer to your potential clients and get offers to cooperate in no time.
Also, don’t forget to join LinkedIn and Facebook groups for translators. Check out some great groups below:
Translator Communities
For a start, most free translators join translator communities such as ProZ, Translators Café, or Translation Directory to find Thai translation jobs. These websites function similarly to job boards where you can apply for different Thai translation projects.
With millions of website visitors each month, having a profile on these translator communities increases your chances of being found. Many customers post their job openings on these platforms as well. As a result, you can actively apply for translation projects that interest you.
Some platforms also provide useful terminology forums where you can access and search for terms in a variety of language pairs and areas of expertise. For example, on ProZ’s Kudoz forum, you can easily search for terminology in many Thai language pairs across a wide range of domains, from medicine and science to information technology and surveying. You can also read about other translators’ research and learn something new.
Freelancing Job Seeking Platforms
Translation is a popular job domain on well-known job-seeking platforms like Freelancer, Upwork, Glassdoor, Fiver, etc. You can skim for Thai translation jobs here. Due to the popularity of these sites, the competition might be high so you should prepare a good profile and rates to enhance your chance of finding as many Thai translation projects as possible.
Thai Translation Agencies
Working with professional Thai translation agencies (or some may call them LSPs) is a popular way to find freelance translation jobs. There are thousands of well-known and reputable translation agencies that will undoubtedly provide you with numerous job opportunities.
Translation agencies have a large number of regular B2B customers as well as end clients who have demands for Thai translation services. This means that the number of Thai translation projects you receive will be quite stable. If your test assignment receives high marks, you can be confident that you will have monthly, weekly, or even daily translation assignments to work on.
Wrap Up
At first, finding a good Thai translation project that fits your experience and offer a good rate is no easy task. However, it gets better over time as you gain more and more experience. We hope the tips we suggest above will be of great help to you. Good luck with finding Thai translation jobs!
If you are interested in working for a professional Thai translation agency, apply to become a part of our talented Thai translators.
