St. Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, and love is very much in the air. Birds are singing, bees are buzzing

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International social media marketing is a continually growing and effective way for businesses and corporations to develop, expand and target new

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You are probably aware that the annual celebration of Chinese New Year is on the horizon.  However, how much do you

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  It is broadly acknowledged that legal translation is one of the most difficult specialist areas within the whole of the

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As the festive season approaches, here are some words, phrases and traditions from around the world, that give an instant insight

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You may never have heard of it, but International Translation Day is celebrated every year on 30th September on the feast

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Interested in working as a freelancer for a translations agency?

You’ve come to the right place. The competition can be tough – there’s no doubt about that. Translation companies receive a high volume of applications from freelancers every week. The standard is high, the competition is fierce, and the need to make your application stand out is greater than ever.
So, we thought we’d provide you with some guidelines. Here are our 5 key tips on how to make your application to a translation agency shine.

1. Research, research, research

When it comes to getting noticed by the agency’s resourcing team, sacrificing a small amount of time to investigate the company’s background will be worth the while.
Augment your chances of success by tailoring your applications for each individual agency, based on the research you’ve conducted. A covering letter which is specific, personalised, and denotes exactly why you want to work for the company will aid progression to the next stage. Demonstrating awareness of the company’s mission, culture and ethos will also stand you in good stead for impressing our recruitment team. Exemplary cover letters clearly state which of the selection criteria is met by the candidate, and offer transferable skills and experiences to make up for any shortfalls. The best candidates also tailor their CV to the positions, highlighting key strengths and skills which are applicable to the role.

2. Getting the application process correct

The power of getting to grips with the agency’s processes is not to be underestimated. By way of example, a high volume of applicants fail to realise most translation agencies have a designated recruitment area on their website, which details our minimum specifications, and provides a link to contact our recruitment team. Instead, many hopefuls submit their applications to our enquiries email address – an inbox designed for job enquiries from our clients – entirely missing the candidate specifications listed on the recruitment page. Others contact our team members on LinkedIn, often messaging an individual who doesn’t deal with the recruitment process at all.

Familiarising yourself with the company’s recruitment process in order to contact the right team not only saves both parties unnecessary email traffic, but also goes some way to demonstrate astuteness. What’s more, it ensures your application is seen by the intended recipient – a win-win situation for both parties.

3. Check the requirements

Many translation agencies have stringent requirements for recruiting freelancers. Most companies will require a degree and a solid few years of translating or interpreting experience. Companies which usually translate for clients in certain industries will also often look for their freelancers to specialise. Ensuring you meet these requirements before beginning work on your application is strongly advisable, as it avoids both employer and applicant time being wasted. It makes sense to focus your efforts on companies which have selection criteria matching your experiences, work history, and specialisms. If you have a vast and rich experience of completing financial translations, focusing your efforts on agencies which specialise in financial translation is highly advisable, as is making the most of your past accomplishments in this area.

4. Subject lines which err on the side of caution

Sometimes, the subject lines of application emails we receive raise a few eyebrows. Claims that the sender is “gifted”, “born with a second tongue”, or possesses “unnaturally exceptional ability” crop up occasionally in our inbox.
Although you might think that entitling your application email ‘Translator application: English to French’ fails to excite, the vast majority of translation agencies are the sort of people who prefer forthrightness, precision, and accuracy. In a word, precision and accuracy are what translation companies do. Subject lines which get straight to the point, and skip the exaggeration or embellishment, will invoke genuine excitement in a recruiter.

5. Impeccable English

This should probably go without saying, but the body of your application email should be written and formatted well. At translation agencies, writing, formatting and great presentation are of paramount importance. Your CV should follow in the same vein: potential employers will view your CV as a means to scan for excellent English skills, flawless grammar and good presentation.

Personalised cover letters, either making up the email body or included as an attachment, will add to your application, so don’t skip over this vital step. Putting the effort in at this stage means you’re much more likely to impress your chosen company.

You can download this article in the form of a infographic for your own reference.

The diversity within the langauges of the world is, in a word, glorious. Neighbouring countries can have completely different phrases, terms and slangwords for the same concept, with no visible correlation. In particular, idioms vary hugely from language to language. In English, we can be green with envy, we might see red, or we could be feeling a bit blue. But uttering those phrases in another language might earn you some strange looks.

Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from around the World, has delved into some of the most interesting idioms from across Europe for us, specifically in relation to the colour yellow in this issue. Who knew one colour could have so many linguistic uses?

1. French: “Jaune d’envie” – yellow (i.e. green) with envy

2. German: “Gelb vor Eifersucht werden” – to become yellow with jealousy

3. Norwegian: “Slå noen gul og blå” – to beat someone up badly (literally to beat someone yellow and blue)

4. Turkish: “Sararıp solmak” – looking sad or unwell (lit. getting yellow and withered)

5. Portuguese “Me ferrei de verde e amarelo!” – I’m in trouble (lit. I’m screwed in green and yellow!)

6. Portuguese: “Sorriso amarelo” – a forced, insincere smile (lit. a yellow smile)

7. French: “Rire jaune” – to give a forced, insincere laugh (lit. to laugh yellow)

8. French: “Voir jaune” – to be pessimistic (lit. to see yellow)

9. Italian: “un libro giallo” – a thriller book (lit. a yellow book)

10. Italian: “giallo d’invidia” – very envious (lit. yellow with envy)

11. Romanian: “a se îngălbeni de frică” – to become visibly afraid (lit. to become yellow with fear)

12. Romanian: “a flutura steguleţe galbene” – to blather (lit. to stream little yellow flags)

13. Romanian: “galben ca turta de ceară” – very pale (lit. as yellow as wax cake)

14. Romanian: “a râde/surâde galben” – to laugh or smile in a forced, insincere way (lit. to laugh or smile yellow)

15. German: “das Gelbe vom Ei” – a good thing (lit. the yellow of the egg)

16. Serbo-Croatian: “žut ko krpa” – nauseous (lit. yellow as cloth)

17. Estonian: “sárga az irigységtől” – very envious (lit. yellow with envy)

18. Estonian: “leissza magát a sárga földig” – he’s very drunk (lit. he drinks himself to the yellow gourd)

19. Polish: “żółtodziób” – an inexperienced person, a rookie (lit. a yellow beak)

20. Polish: “mieć żółte papiery” – to be insane (lit. to have yellow papers)

21. Scottish Gaelic: “buidheach” – jaundice (lit. yellowness)

22. Finnish: “keltanokka” – a beginner, a rookie (lit. yellow-beaked)

23. Swedish: “slå någon gul och blå” – to bruise someone (lit. to hit someone yellow and blue)

24. Danish: “et barn på gule plader” – a step-child (lit. a child with yellow licence plates)

25. Italian: “un giallo” – an unsolved mystery (lit. a yellow)

Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from around the World, published by Penguin Books, and the creator of the iPhone App Tingo, a quiz on Interesting Words.

For those of you who follow our social media accounts, you would have come across our 15 predictions about business & corporate training for 2015. For those that missed them – this is for you!

So, what do the Kwintessential (Consulting) team predict will happen in 2015?

#1: Globalisation will see the need for more localized training content in local languages

#2: Environmental concerns will see less printed workbooks and more training collateral in the Cloud and on Smart devices

#3: Learning Management Systems combined with analytics will lead to more personalised, individual-centred, training solutions

#4: A focus on the sustainability of learning will drive the training sector to deliver long term value

#5: Closing the gender talent gap will be a high priority for company training agendas

#6: Increasing virtual teamwork will necessitate the creation of common understandings, glossaries and collaborative platforms

#7: Emerging markets will leverage diaspora connections producing more “local” knowledge

#8: Cultural awareness will increasingly be taught to younger generations

#9: Diversity will be the antidote to groupthink

#10: Intra-generational training will grow in demand as firms seek to leverage knowledge of both young and old

#11: Compulsory training topics will increase for employers out of need to reduce exposure to litigious risk

#12: Holisitic approaches to employee welfare shall become more popular including diet, exercise and mental wellbeing

#13: Higher demands will be placed on pedagogical skills and creating an engaging, compelling, immersive and emotional learning experience

#14: Storytelling will become a more widely-used training technique because of its capacity to inspire and build empathy

#15: Mindfulness will be an increasingly sought after skill across organisations and a fundamental requirement for leaders

Understanding a country’s past helps you understand its present. XX Kathinka gives her viewpoint on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; a physical and symbolic wall that shaped the Cold War and today still influences German culture.

After 28 years of separation by the iron curtain, a jubilant crowd celebrated the reunification of Germany. November 9th, 1989 went down in history when, followed by years of peaceful protests, the wall finally fell. It took another 11 months until the Eastern part of Germany officially acceded to the West on October 3rd, 1990 – today this date is celebrated as the Day of the German Union.

Now the German separation was over. Eventually families, friends, colleagues, and entire cities were reunited. Or weren’t we? Are we still not?! That’s a question even I ask myself as a German, born in 1987 in West Germany.

This year, Germany is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. What lessons did we learn and did we eventually become one nation again?

We are the same but different

Well, it is not as black and white as it seems at first glance. It is true, from Schleswig-Holstein to Bavaria, we are all Germans. We are from the same country and we speak the same language, but we were influenced by different cultures, music, books, authors and ideologies. The lives of thousands of people changed with the separation of Germany by the iron curtain that was basically built over night.

Families seperated by the early line which became the Berlin Wall
Photo courtesy of Once Upon a Time in War

All of a sudden, we were integrated into different regimes – the Eastern part under the control of the former Soviet Union, and the Western part mainly controlled by Western Allies. Slowly but surely, Germany became the scene of another part of history, the Cold War. There were soldiers with their trained dogs on both sides of the border who had orders to open fire on anyone who made a wrong move. There was propaganda on both sides which shaped entire generations.

One-way street to a unified Germany

Keeping this in mind, the term “reunification” might be misleading as it can be argued “the West took over the East”. On the one hand, people living in the Eastern part had had enough of oppression, dictatorship, censorship, and the numerous limitations. Many of them just wanted to be free and the West represented the ultimate goal of their dreams. When the wall finally came down, nobody even questioned the West being considered standard and the East being inferior, not only in terms of economy, finance or quality of goods but also culture-wise. The reunification was more a one-way street leading to difficulties in the West as well as in the East.

In the aftermath, people started to reconsider and to weigh disadvantages and advantages: People from the former Eastern part weren’t accustomed to unemployment, but capitalism could not provide employment for everybody. The West on the other hand was financially more stable than the East and therefore had to support the East in this aspect (e.i. alignment of currency, unemployed, weak economy, etc.). In retrospect it seems as if someone decided that in order to get rid of the Stasi (Eastern Germany security police that observed and took away potential opponents of the regime), oppression, and censorship, the East had to vanish.

What the future holds

All of these issues still have an impact on all generations in Germany. However, the way my parents and grand-parents see people from the other side of the Wall is largely different to how younger generations perceive the situation today. From my point of view, we are in the process of growing together and we’ve already come a long way. Growing together is not easy, especially if the norm is to mistrust your neighbours because they might be observing you to betray you to the Stasi.

Growing together is not easy if you feel you have to financially shoulder the others. But there is no point in moaning over the past, because we are the people – that is what we learned. The next generation is already in its way to a more unified Germany.

By Kathinka Ottenbreit. From Darmstadt, Hesse in Germany, Kathinka studies M.A. Conference Interpreting at Heidelberg University. She is also a working student for SNP AG (software solutions and consulting) in Germany. At the moment she is working with Kwintessential Consulting. Next milestones: graduating from university, working as an interpreter and definitely consolidating cultural training/cultural awareness knowledge.