@carolsignorini, entrei aqui para fazer a mesma pergunta.
O último trabalho que fiz foi em 18 de abril e depois disso ou não vejo nada por dias ou quando aparece algo outro tradutor é mais rápido.
Queria também saber se isso é normal.
Juliana
0
Josy
Eu não vi nenhum trabalho até hoje na minha timelime. Alguém sabe o que está acontecendo?
0
feolp
Cheguei aqui ontem. Estou ansioso para começar! Há períodos do ano em que o volume de trabalho é maior?
0
joao.maximo
Olá a todos.
Julgo que continua a haver muito trabalho. O que me parece é que o número de tradutores para português aumentou muito, o que quer dizer que cada um tem menos (muito menos, diria mesmo) trabalho.
Eu continuo a ver alguns jobs mas, tipicamente, chego tarde e alguém os "apanhou" antes de mim...
É um equilíbrio difícil, este de balancear o trabalho com o número de tradutores. Compreendo o gengo, que gosta de ter os seus clientes finais satisfeitos com tempos de resposta muito rápidos (e por isso aceita mais tradutores), mas os tradutores ficam insatisfeitos quando têm pouco trabalho, o que poderá afastar os melhores, reduzindo a qualidade geral. Não é fácil...
Boa sorte!
0
Francisco Paulo Francischini
Hi there,
I started here at Gengo in December 2014, translating Eng=>Port, and I made several translations of hotel reviews, mostly on 12/24! But, after that the jobs disappeared, and this week I have translated just some words. Unfortunately I think you are right, too much translators for just a few jobs. it's a pity because this is a nice place to work.
0
ricardoazedo
Responderei em inglês apenas para reforçar que gostaria que a equipe do Gengo leia meu comentário.
Apparently, the number of translators for the language pairs involving Brazilian Portuguese has risen A LOT in the last 4 or 5 months (this information was confirmed by Gengo staff when I raised the question to them). In addition to the "snipers" mentioned by our colleague João Máximo, the fact that we have more translators will always make it more difficult to have access to the jobs.
I also understand it is hard to balance supply and demand but flooding the system with several new translators, although helpful during peaks of job inflow, will finally decrease the interest in the long term when the amount of translations available is not necessarily high. This causes frustration, and finally leads to good translators simply dropping the task or even disconnecting from Gengo; if that happens, Gengo will not only loose good translators, but also people with an extraordinary background on the translation field (and remember, those changes made to the platform were initially suggested by the translators, therefore your continuous improvement is somehow linked to those people who always provided feedback and brought the pain points to your attention).
I really expect the Gengo team will think about how to resolve that issue. Nevertheless, I assume just letting those new translators go by telling them "Thank you, but we do not need you anymore" is not an approach to be considered. Gengo is an industry leader and has to be constantly working toward excellence to remain as such at both fronts: clients and translators/service providers.
0
Megan Waters
@ricardoazedo: I 100% agree with your comment. We definitely shouldn't be flooding the system with new translators, and this really annoys me, too. I think this was an approach that worked a long, long time ago when our community was much smaller and we now need a new approach. One of our staff is actually going to start dedicating all his time to figuring out this capacity issue so we can be much smarter about when and how we acquire translators. This should make a big, big difference :)
0
ricardoazedo
@meganwaters It makes me happy to know Gengo actually listens to translators' feedback and respects our opinion. This is the correct way for innovation and continuous improvement - and I heard that the Kaizen approach is a key element of your staff, so yeah, you are doing it right! I look forward to keep working with you, and I encourage translators to share their opinion with the Gengo team whenever they identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
0
mirko
Sorry for butting in, but this is an issue that affects several pairs, and, while I do really appreciate Megan's words, I think that, realistically speaking, even if measures are taken now (like, you know, not reopening the tests when there's absolutely no need for it...), "the damage's already been done", so to speak, as it would be unthinkable to "remove" people who already passed the tests, so pairs with hundreds of qualified translators, but little to no work, will just have to stay like that, with people "fighting" for crumbs... In other words, in several pairs Gengo has mutated from crowdsourcing service to overcrowdsourcing service...
Additionally, I only read a couple days ago a post from a translator who said they had just taken the "pro" test (again), and that was in one of the already overcrowded pairs with little available work (specifically, EN>IT), so, while Gengo may be aware of this, it looks like its actions are not particularly consistent with that awareness...
0
Alexander
Perhaps part of the problem is that the current approach doesn't take time zones into account. For my pair (target language Dutch) it might well be that most translators live in the Netherlands, so they are all together in 1 time zone, either all awake or all asleep. During the time they are all asleep, orders are not picked up quickly. So Gengo opens up the tests, only to get more translators in the wrong time zone.
I suggest translators are categorized not only by language pair (and level), but also by availability. I'm not a translator who translates from English to Dutch, I'm a translator who does so between 08:00 and 23:00 European time. Ask all translators (current and new) about their availability, and only accept new translators who are available at times when the capacity in that pair is below the demand of customers.
0
mirko
@Alexander - Nice thinking and good idea. I just hope that's not the real reason why they've been reopening the tests so frequently in several language pairs, though, as that would've been quite (read "very") short-sighted on their part...
0
Megan Waters
@ricardoazedo: Thank you!
@Alexander: Yeah, I think you're right in terms of the time zones. It definitely may be the case that we open up testing because it seems we need new translators but really the jobs are being ordered when all our existing translators are sleeping. So the numbers telling us to acquire translators just aren't accurate.
@Mirko: I would like to emphasize that we look at a number of factors before deciding to open up testing. There are many, many factors that come into play for this issue but I completely agree that, while it may have worked in the past, it's not working now and we need to refine this method. As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a member of staff who is primarily looking at capacity and acquisition will be a last resort when all other levers have been pulled.
Your suggestions on how to improve this are, as always, welcome.
0
mirko
@Megan - Late reply, only to say that, even if you just appointed someone to check the real need for new translators in the various pairs, I honestly think that's not going to do any good to already overcrowded pairs. As I was saying above: "the damage's already been done".
Additionally, I just happened to read another comment from yet another new translator who just passed the standard test in one of those (most definitely) overcrowded pairs (EN>IT), where translation jobs seem to disappear "retroactively", even before they're posted.
So, again, while I do appreciate your words...
0
LeaTranslations
@ Megan: I'm glad to hear that someone is going to be looking at the real need for translators. Might I suggest that while this person is doing so, testing be turned off for all language pairs? I see that testing for French to English is open again and we definitely do not need any new translators in that pair in my humble opinion of course.
0
atcluciana
Pessoal,
entrei aqui em janeiro e até agora não consegui pegar nenhum job (no par inglês>português). Nos últimos dias eu tenho atualizado a página constantemente e nunca aparece nenhum... Então, de fato não estão surgindo novos jobs MESMO, nenhunzinho... Ou eu não estou dando sorte nos horários em que tento verificar e/ou eles são pegos muito rapidamente?
0
Joan.Castick
@LB: I couldn't agree more. Every day seems to be a battle for whatever jobs are available in the FR to ENG pair. So there's no way we need extra translators in that pair! Not a humble opinion, a fact!
0
ricardoazedo
@atcluciana: If you follow the message string, you will see that several translators have been added to the team (and you are one of the newcomers) despite the amount of job. It means increased competition for decreased job. From a project management perspective, adding more translators to the team without having an increase in the job flow will only create disappointment for both new and old translators - translators are fighting over breadcrumbs.
By the way, Gengo team: Can you share with us how many translators you have registered for each language pair? I am not sure if my colleague translators agree, but I think this is valuable information to keep.
0
mirko
@Ricardo - I agree, and that could be added here: http://gengo.com/open-data/capacity.html or in a separate tab/sub-section, also stating the number of total qualified and active translators per pair (and, why not, per level). In the end this should be easily accessible and ready-to-use data for Gengo, and updating it every 2 weeks/month or so shouldn't be such a big burden either.
0
atcluciana
@ricardoazedo, entendi... Mas a minha dúvida é se, mesmo com essa "superpopulação" de tradutores, os jobs ainda aparecem ou se a demanda por traduções também está escassa... Porque eu tive uma experiência parecida com uma outra agência (excesso de tradutores e nem tantos jobs) e rolava uma correria pra pegar traduções quando surgiam - mas surgiam! Aí é que está, entendeu? Cheguei a entrar aqui no Gengo de madrugada (por volta de 2h da manhã) e nem nesse horário tinha job disponível. Isso me leva a achar que não é só a questão de excesso de tradutores, mas de falta de trabalho também, ou seja, falta de demanda por parte dos clientes...
0
Erika B.
According to this http://gengo.com/open-data/capacity.html the EN > IT language pair is one of the most congested in relation with the amount of available jobs. I don't see the purpose of that but I might not see what's at stake...
Indeed, why don't open tests for new language pairs instead of burdening the already working ones? I know it's not so simple, there are many factors that need to be considered, not least finding new STs etc.
Just my two cents :-)
0
mirko
@Erika - I don't think that offering a lot more pairs would solve the problem – whatever they think their problem is, by the way, since, quite frankly, I didn't get it... – especially if there was no request in those pairs, and also seeing how someone should (ideally) only be translating into their mother tongue.
At any rate, Gengo's open data shows that the "first action time" (FAT) and "turnaround time" averages are already very low (definitely lower than any traditional agency's, I'd say), with respectively 7 and 37 minutes. the 95th percentile FAT is 102 minutes. All of those figures are well within what Gengo itself considers "ideal": "Our ideal is for Average FAT to be just a few minutes, and 95%ile FAT to be between 1-2 hours to cover off unusual eventualities", and the FAT for all of the "main" language pairs is 15 minutes or lower (with FR>EN down at 1 minute – also reflecting was LB and Joan were saying – EN>JA, EN>ES/ES-LA and EN>IT at 2 minutes), so, for the life of me, I don't really understand why they keep onboarding people (since that's what they've been doing even in the last few days, as I was saying above, and despite what Megan wrote), especially when there clearly isn't nearly enough work for everyone in some of those pairs.
Of course, that's entirely Gengo's choice, that's obvious, but, is it really wise to have (literally) hundreds of translators for a couple dozen (often tiny) jobs per day? How long will it take before they finally give up and move away from Gengo (but with their accounts still there and Gengo taking on more fodder)? :-/ Not particularly far-sighted, or effective in keeping and promoting talent and experience, in my opinion.
I hope the reasoning behind this isn't only to have a lot of "spare resources" at the ready to swiftly deal with the occasional surges of jobs posted at the same time by the same customer(s), like when a customer unwisely decides it's such a brilliant idea to post a thousand 1-10 words jobs instead of grouping them in a couple of "collections"...
If, on the other hand, the issue is what Alexander mentioned above (time-zones), well, the average times I quoted don't really seem to be affected that much by that, but even then, as Alexander rightly said, getting new translators in the same time-zones isn't going to solve that, unless you specifically require that new translators reside in a specific time-zone (checking their IP) or to be always available in front of their PCs during night-time in their time-zone... (and I don't think either is really feasible, or advisable)
0
carla m.
Hats off to Mirko...I couldn't have said it better. It's getting really frustrating.
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LeaTranslations
@ Mirko: Very well said as always!
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mirko
Thanks guys, but I actually wish I was wrong. Someone else just posted a screenshot about available EN>* tests ( http://bit.ly/1DlXRiq ), and FR>EN is still open too, so... -_-
A pity.
0
Permanently deleted user
You realize that reducing the number of translators isn't a bad idea once you work on review jobs. :/
26 comments
@carolsignorini, entrei aqui para fazer a mesma pergunta.
O último trabalho que fiz foi em 18 de abril e depois disso ou não vejo nada por dias ou quando aparece algo outro tradutor é mais rápido.
Queria também saber se isso é normal.
Juliana
Eu não vi nenhum trabalho até hoje na minha timelime. Alguém sabe o que está acontecendo?
Cheguei aqui ontem. Estou ansioso para começar! Há períodos do ano em que o volume de trabalho é maior?
Olá a todos.
Julgo que continua a haver muito trabalho. O que me parece é que o número de tradutores para português aumentou muito, o que quer dizer que cada um tem menos (muito menos, diria mesmo) trabalho.
Eu continuo a ver alguns jobs mas, tipicamente, chego tarde e alguém os "apanhou" antes de mim...
É um equilíbrio difícil, este de balancear o trabalho com o número de tradutores. Compreendo o gengo, que gosta de ter os seus clientes finais satisfeitos com tempos de resposta muito rápidos (e por isso aceita mais tradutores), mas os tradutores ficam insatisfeitos quando têm pouco trabalho, o que poderá afastar os melhores, reduzindo a qualidade geral. Não é fácil...
Boa sorte!
Hi there,
I started here at Gengo in December 2014, translating Eng=>Port, and I made several translations of hotel reviews, mostly on 12/24! But, after that the jobs disappeared, and this week I have translated just some words. Unfortunately I think you are right, too much translators for just a few jobs. it's a pity because this is a nice place to work.
Responderei em inglês apenas para reforçar que gostaria que a equipe do Gengo leia meu comentário.
Apparently, the number of translators for the language pairs involving Brazilian Portuguese has risen A LOT in the last 4 or 5 months (this information was confirmed by Gengo staff when I raised the question to them). In addition to the "snipers" mentioned by our colleague João Máximo, the fact that we have more translators will always make it more difficult to have access to the jobs.
I also understand it is hard to balance supply and demand but flooding the system with several new translators, although helpful during peaks of job inflow, will finally decrease the interest in the long term when the amount of translations available is not necessarily high. This causes frustration, and finally leads to good translators simply dropping the task or even disconnecting from Gengo; if that happens, Gengo will not only loose good translators, but also people with an extraordinary background on the translation field (and remember, those changes made to the platform were initially suggested by the translators, therefore your continuous improvement is somehow linked to those people who always provided feedback and brought the pain points to your attention).
I really expect the Gengo team will think about how to resolve that issue. Nevertheless, I assume just letting those new translators go by telling them "Thank you, but we do not need you anymore" is not an approach to be considered. Gengo is an industry leader and has to be constantly working toward excellence to remain as such at both fronts: clients and translators/service providers.
@ricardoazedo: I 100% agree with your comment. We definitely shouldn't be flooding the system with new translators, and this really annoys me, too. I think this was an approach that worked a long, long time ago when our community was much smaller and we now need a new approach. One of our staff is actually going to start dedicating all his time to figuring out this capacity issue so we can be much smarter about when and how we acquire translators. This should make a big, big difference :)
@meganwaters It makes me happy to know Gengo actually listens to translators' feedback and respects our opinion. This is the correct way for innovation and continuous improvement - and I heard that the Kaizen approach is a key element of your staff, so yeah, you are doing it right! I look forward to keep working with you, and I encourage translators to share their opinion with the Gengo team whenever they identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Sorry for butting in, but this is an issue that affects several pairs, and, while I do really appreciate Megan's words, I think that, realistically speaking, even if measures are taken now (like, you know, not reopening the tests when there's absolutely no need for it...), "the damage's already been done", so to speak, as it would be unthinkable to "remove" people who already passed the tests, so pairs with hundreds of qualified translators, but little to no work, will just have to stay like that, with people "fighting" for crumbs... In other words, in several pairs Gengo has mutated from crowdsourcing service to overcrowdsourcing service...
Additionally, I only read a couple days ago a post from a translator who said they had just taken the "pro" test (again), and that was in one of the already overcrowded pairs with little available work (specifically, EN>IT), so, while Gengo may be aware of this, it looks like its actions are not particularly consistent with that awareness...
Perhaps part of the problem is that the current approach doesn't take time zones into account. For my pair (target language Dutch) it might well be that most translators live in the Netherlands, so they are all together in 1 time zone, either all awake or all asleep. During the time they are all asleep, orders are not picked up quickly. So Gengo opens up the tests, only to get more translators in the wrong time zone.
I suggest translators are categorized not only by language pair (and level), but also by availability. I'm not a translator who translates from English to Dutch, I'm a translator who does so between 08:00 and 23:00 European time. Ask all translators (current and new) about their availability, and only accept new translators who are available at times when the capacity in that pair is below the demand of customers.
@Alexander - Nice thinking and good idea. I just hope that's not the real reason why they've been reopening the tests so frequently in several language pairs, though, as that would've been quite (read "very") short-sighted on their part...
@ricardoazedo: Thank you!
@Alexander: Yeah, I think you're right in terms of the time zones. It definitely may be the case that we open up testing because it seems we need new translators but really the jobs are being ordered when all our existing translators are sleeping. So the numbers telling us to acquire translators just aren't accurate.
@Mirko: I would like to emphasize that we look at a number of factors before deciding to open up testing. There are many, many factors that come into play for this issue but I completely agree that, while it may have worked in the past, it's not working now and we need to refine this method. As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a member of staff who is primarily looking at capacity and acquisition will be a last resort when all other levers have been pulled.
Your suggestions on how to improve this are, as always, welcome.
@Megan - Late reply, only to say that, even if you just appointed someone to check the real need for new translators in the various pairs, I honestly think that's not going to do any good to already overcrowded pairs. As I was saying above: "the damage's already been done".
Additionally, I just happened to read another comment from yet another new translator who just passed the standard test in one of those (most definitely) overcrowded pairs (EN>IT), where translation jobs seem to disappear "retroactively", even before they're posted.
So, again, while I do appreciate your words...
@ Megan: I'm glad to hear that someone is going to be looking at the real need for translators. Might I suggest that while this person is doing so, testing be turned off for all language pairs? I see that testing for French to English is open again and we definitely do not need any new translators in that pair in my humble opinion of course.
Pessoal,
entrei aqui em janeiro e até agora não consegui pegar nenhum job (no par inglês>português). Nos últimos dias eu tenho atualizado a página constantemente e nunca aparece nenhum... Então, de fato não estão surgindo novos jobs MESMO, nenhunzinho... Ou eu não estou dando sorte nos horários em que tento verificar e/ou eles são pegos muito rapidamente?
@LB: I couldn't agree more. Every day seems to be a battle for whatever jobs are available in the FR to ENG pair. So there's no way we need extra translators in that pair! Not a humble opinion, a fact!
@atcluciana: If you follow the message string, you will see that several translators have been added to the team (and you are one of the newcomers) despite the amount of job. It means increased competition for decreased job. From a project management perspective, adding more translators to the team without having an increase in the job flow will only create disappointment for both new and old translators - translators are fighting over breadcrumbs.
By the way, Gengo team: Can you share with us how many translators you have registered for each language pair? I am not sure if my colleague translators agree, but I think this is valuable information to keep.
@Ricardo - I agree, and that could be added here: http://gengo.com/open-data/capacity.html or in a separate tab/sub-section, also stating the number of total qualified and active translators per pair (and, why not, per level). In the end this should be easily accessible and ready-to-use data for Gengo, and updating it every 2 weeks/month or so shouldn't be such a big burden either.
@ricardoazedo, entendi... Mas a minha dúvida é se, mesmo com essa "superpopulação" de tradutores, os jobs ainda aparecem ou se a demanda por traduções também está escassa... Porque eu tive uma experiência parecida com uma outra agência (excesso de tradutores e nem tantos jobs) e rolava uma correria pra pegar traduções quando surgiam - mas surgiam! Aí é que está, entendeu? Cheguei a entrar aqui no Gengo de madrugada (por volta de 2h da manhã) e nem nesse horário tinha job disponível. Isso me leva a achar que não é só a questão de excesso de tradutores, mas de falta de trabalho também, ou seja, falta de demanda por parte dos clientes...
According to this http://gengo.com/open-data/capacity.html the EN > IT language pair is one of the most congested in relation with the amount of available jobs. I don't see the purpose of that but I might not see what's at stake...
Indeed, why don't open tests for new language pairs instead of burdening the already working ones? I know it's not so simple, there are many factors that need to be considered, not least finding new STs etc.
Just my two cents :-)
@Erika - I don't think that offering a lot more pairs would solve the problem – whatever they think their problem is, by the way, since, quite frankly, I didn't get it... – especially if there was no request in those pairs, and also seeing how someone should (ideally) only be translating into their mother tongue.
At any rate, Gengo's open data shows that the "first action time" (FAT) and "turnaround time" averages are already very low (definitely lower than any traditional agency's, I'd say), with respectively 7 and 37 minutes. the 95th percentile FAT is 102 minutes. All of those figures are well within what Gengo itself considers "ideal": "Our ideal is for Average FAT to be just a few minutes, and 95%ile FAT to be between 1-2 hours to cover off unusual eventualities", and the FAT for all of the "main" language pairs is 15 minutes or lower (with FR>EN down at 1 minute – also reflecting was LB and Joan were saying – EN>JA, EN>ES/ES-LA and EN>IT at 2 minutes), so, for the life of me, I don't really understand why they keep onboarding people (since that's what they've been doing even in the last few days, as I was saying above, and despite what Megan wrote), especially when there clearly isn't nearly enough work for everyone in some of those pairs.
Of course, that's entirely Gengo's choice, that's obvious, but, is it really wise to have (literally) hundreds of translators for a couple dozen (often tiny) jobs per day? How long will it take before they finally give up and move away from Gengo (but with their accounts still there and Gengo taking on more fodder)? :-/ Not particularly far-sighted, or effective in keeping and promoting talent and experience, in my opinion.
I hope the reasoning behind this isn't only to have a lot of "spare resources" at the ready to swiftly deal with the occasional surges of jobs posted at the same time by the same customer(s), like when a customer unwisely decides it's such a brilliant idea to post a thousand 1-10 words jobs instead of grouping them in a couple of "collections"...
If, on the other hand, the issue is what Alexander mentioned above (time-zones), well, the average times I quoted don't really seem to be affected that much by that, but even then, as Alexander rightly said, getting new translators in the same time-zones isn't going to solve that, unless you specifically require that new translators reside in a specific time-zone (checking their IP) or to be always available in front of their PCs during night-time in their time-zone... (and I don't think either is really feasible, or advisable)
Hats off to Mirko...I couldn't have said it better. It's getting really frustrating.
@ Mirko: Very well said as always!
Thanks guys, but I actually wish I was wrong. Someone else just posted a screenshot about available EN>* tests ( http://bit.ly/1DlXRiq ), and FR>EN is still open too, so... -_-
A pity.
You realize that reducing the number of translators isn't a bad idea once you work on review jobs. :/
Nada, ainda? :/