Top 5 Translator Certification Mistakes
1. Completing a more expensive on campus translator certification: By our team's estimates and records over 70% of translator certification participants are already working or studying full time while completing such the certification. Due to this it is important to strongly consider completing a certification in translator that is 100% online, meaning that the career coaching, video content, audio resources, forum, customer service, and testing is all online. If it is not you may have to work on another organization's business hours, pay technology fees, or spend your valuable time commuting in traffic to attend in-person sessions or examinations. Even if your time is only worth $15 or $25 an hour these extra annoyances get in the way of learning faster and can add up to a higher cost than what you pay in total tuition.
2. Not investing at least a full hour in learning how to position yourself as being certified: While almost everyone who completes a translator certification immediately adds this fact to their resume, most stop at that point when they could be doing much more. Once you have invested 100 hours+ in earning this type of a certification consider positioning yourself further through one of these methods:
• Adding details about being certified to your Linkedin.com profile
• Adding the certification's logo to your resume to highlight this special training
• Making sure your resume is only 1 page long maximum so it is more likely to be read
• Adding a badge linking to the translator certification program's description on your personal bio website, blog or Linkedin.com, Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.com Profile page
• Building a one page profile website which promotes your experience and training much like a resume
3. Assuming you are not experienced enough to complete a translator certification program: We get emails from undergraduates, graduate school students, and recent graduates every day who mistakenly believe that translator certifications are only for those with 3, 5 or 7 years worth of experience.
4. Not taking certification in translator serious enough: Everyone is busy and with several commitments to attend to each day it can be easy to put off reading, watching videos, or listening to audio resources for a certification program. It can help if you take a slow and steady approach and invest just 45 minutes a day each business day to covering the required reading and video-based materials for the program. Take notes while you study and start to put together a list of key ideas and pages to review in the future before your test.
5. Believing it is "too late" to complete a translator certification: It is common for professionals with 10, 15, or 20 years of previous work experience or small business ownership to want to re-train themselves to enter the translator industry either at an entry-level or mid-level position. This is natural and more common than you would think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that you have 0 experience in the industry and no training, everyone starts from scratch at some point and your real life experience will pay off while on the job as you hopefully come off as a more respectful, mature, pro-active, and responsible employee who will be able to handle the politics of the work environment much better than many younger professionals.
These translator certification mistakes are taken out of the over 3,000 emails our team at the Global Translation Institute every month. We hope that by sharing these we can add value to your first while you evaluate whether to join a professional translator certification program.
If you are interested in learning more about one option to complete such a program our team offers the Certified Translation Professional (CTP) program.
Learn more about the Certified Translation Professional (CTP) Program.
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