This is the context: you’ve graduated from college and you thought you’d become a successful freelance translator overnight. Wrong. In countries where education is free, there’s not one profession that offers fast job opportunities. Except that you go on with your parent’s business, no one trust a new professional unless he shows a brilliant CV. Therefore, here’s what worked for me and now the effort is paying off.

Become a member of any Translators’ Association. Don’t waste your time. Even if you’re working at something else (like most translators do in Argentina; as teaching, for instance), register at a Translator’s Association and enjoy the benefits of counting on colleagues that can guide you through your career, having discount in courses, being recommended in their webpage and helping you be up to date with the profession.

Attend conferences and congresses for translators. This may be summed up in one word:contacts. You know you are good at what you do, but who knows you besides your classmates and professors? You must enter the professional translator’s world. Apart of acquiring more knowledge in your field, here you’ll have the chance to meet possible bosses and coworkers.

Keep on studying. There are always new tools for translators being introduced to the market and you need to know how to use them. I don’t know what it is like at European Universities, but until I graduated, we never received formal education on any translation software. Besides, if you expect to be taken seriously, start choosing an area of expertise.

Work as an intern. Though I didn’t have this opportunity in my life, let me recommend that you give it a try and absorb all the information you can about the practice of translation and the knowledge your experienced colleagues may have, which at this point is for free. However, the best benefit of working as an intern is that your possible mistakes are forgiven and corrected by someone else –and no one is affected by them.

Work for agencies. You know what they say, especially if you translate into Spanish, “they don’t pay well, you’ll waste your time”. This may or may not be the case. It depends on the agency and the language combination, but it’s one way you can start your career without dying in the process.

Have a web page; never mind if it’s a free one. This is just a part of a translator’s marketing strategy and you may also start thinking about writing a blog, sharing news on translation and advertising your web page in Google. There are lots of webinars and blogs that deal with marketing for translators –start following #xl8 and #t9n if you don’t!

Never give up. Freelancing may not be for everybody or you may not have a way of working as a translator, which is my case, but if you love your profession, let me tell you that you will always find a way. Stay positive and above all, stay active.