Wouldn’t a fast connection make it easier to get jobs rather than harder? :-)
The RMPL rss feeder only checks every 60 seconds, so it can miss some jobs. Other than manually refreshing the page every few seconds, I’m not sure what more you can do to be honest. Some language pairs have a lot more jobs than others. You should get a weekly digest in your emails from Lionbridge showing the days and times during the previous week that had the most work coming through, so having a look at that may help give you an idea of when it’s worth keeping an extra close eye on the jobs feed.
2
Rica Tero
Hi @Cris! :) Thank you for sharing your question here. Also, thanks @Michael, for answering Cris' question. It's very informative. Some language pairs(LPs) are not busy, and setting the interval is crucial. As Michael said, the weekly stats we send out might give you a helping hand on when to check the jobs feed. However, it is only for one LP, and if you are qualified for multiple LPs, you might want to check out the trends of another LP you think you might get more jobs. Customers also can order the jobs to their preferred pool, and only the translators there can see those jobs. Maybe the majority of the jobs coming to your LP are like that. If you have any other questions or concerns about it, please don't hesitate to contact the support team or me. I will do my best to help you out. Have a nice day to both of you, and happy translating!
Many thanks// Rica
2
Cris
Thanks @Michael and @Rica... I do have many LPs and I know about the weekly stats as well. I was just trying to know if there is any other feed reader which is faster than RSS Feed Reader or RMPL feed reader.
The advice given by @Michael of "manually refreshing the page every few seconds" will therefore not work as nothing will be updated for 60 seconds. The best advice is given in the above thread.
0
Bettina
Hi Cris,
Try Feed Notifier! It is sometimes faster than Feeder and you don’t have to pay for fast updates. Good luck!
1
Michael Hughes
@AlexF That's useful to know, thank you. Occasionally though I've refreshed the page and caught jobs that weren't picked up by the RMPL feed, so always been a bit confused about this.
4
AlexF
@Michael
The browser has a 60s refreshment limit and so does your RMPL feed.
They are not synchronized so one can pick up a job that the other "missed".
2
Cris
Thanks @Alex
3
Michael Hughes
@Bettina Thank you so much! I'll try that too.
3
Cris
Thanks @Betina
2
Michael Hughes
@Alex Great to know many thanks!
4
Rica Tero
Thanks @AlexF and @Bettina for sharing inputs on this thread. :)
I apologize, Michael, if I can't suggest any RSS feeder that will be best for you. :( I'm not an expert with this type of tool.
I have asked for help from our support team to provide better information. So the RSS feeder and the dashboard are two separate things. It means the refresh rate of your RSS feeder will not affect your dashboard. When you manually refresh your dashboard between the feeder's interval period (60 seconds), you can see the jobs published within that time.
You can read more details in this support article.
Edited by Rica Tero
3
mdj_cm
Hello there,
The best and most important advice I would give to anyone seeking a steady and fair source of income in the translation business is to find a proper job and/or be active on hunting jobs on multiple B2B platforms (Proz, etc.). Gengo is like a trap. You spend more time hoping and actively waiting for a job than actually getting and working on one, and most of the time you get a lot of frustration in the process. In my country this business practice amounts to exploitation of labour even if you have consented to it and are free to leave anytime (there has been a precedent in law with Uber in France). Don't get me wrong, Gengo can be great when you are a beginner and wish to improve while getting paid, or as a very secondary source of income, but that's about it. No offense to the Gengo support staff as they are great and caring :)
Best luck to all
ps. even as a preferred translator you get to click on a job and see that you are too late on getting it... happened to me again last night. Sigh
ps2. a fast connection AND a fast computer (good processor+ram) which I have may help (by loading the job page faster), but only slightly (unless you have a very slow one), on top of aforesaid 60s rss readers.
Edited by mdj_cm
4
Michael Hughes
So far I’ve found that Gengo has been fairly transparent about what the deal is. It’s not meant to be a way of earning a full time income as you say, but rather a side gig to a day job or something for full time translators to dip in to when they have quiet periods. If you’re a beginning translator, as you say, it’s a lot more lucrative than volunteering your services for free (or say doing a masters in translation) or something, given the remuneration and feedback you can get. The pro-level jobs in my pair I find pay close to what appears to be the going rate for a newbie translator trying to break in. It also takes out a lot of the hassle of having to find clients/negotiate with agencies that you might not have time for if translation isn’t your full time job.
I think more advice from seasoned pros like yourself about ways to progress one’s freelance career is something this forum could really benefit from - I was surprised not to see more of it actually when I first started coming.
4
mdj_cm
Hello Michael Hughes,
Thanks for your reply. As you point out rightly, Gengo has been fairly transparent. That said, and I am not blaming them personally, their business model thrives and only thrives thanks to a large pool of translators who devote/waste much of their time actively waiting for a job (by being very focused on the rss refresher and ready at any time to start working straight away). When you appraise one's income per job, you need to take into account all the efforts/time/opportunity cost induced on your side to get and complete the job, not just the pay rate per se, as you know.
Regarding myself, I haven't built a proper career in the translation industry. I have been translating mostly for Gengo for the last 8 years (wordsmith/top scorer/pro badges), while working on websites of my own. However, I have specialized in legal translation (I hold a master's degree in law which may help, but anyone can do it) by completing a post-graduate level course in that very field last year. And now that I am a dad since sept. 01, and in dire need of cash, I'm in the process of applying to Translation Agencies, and an Appellate Court here in France in order to be certified. In the meantime, I'm also applying for virtually any job listings I get through Proz, including everything blockchain related.
Kind regards,
Michael (also)
Edited by mdj_cm
3
Michael Hughes
@mdj_cm Félicitations pour la naissance de votre bébé!!! :-)
I'm rather envious of that master's degree in Law of yours! I've just completed an MBA, but Legal does seem to be a step above business translation in terms of rates in the translation industry (probably the highest of them all actually?).
All the advice I've had so far is that freelance translation as a career is definitely a case of playing the long game and being patient - while it might be tough now, it sounds like you've set yourself up nicely for a very bright future! Best of luck in your career and thanks again.
0
mdj_cm
@Michael Hughes Many thanks for your kind message!
The highest paying translation jobs may actually be medical and other advanced technological stuff (e.g. engineering, chemistry), as well as legal, depending on the content, its end use and the client. For instance, if you are translating Terms and Conditions for any website, you will be closer to the lowest paying pro jobs, while important contracts, deeds or treaties, used by states or big companies and which need to be absolutely flawless, will pay more. Having a master's degree in Law (LLM in distance learning in my case) isn't mandatory for working as a certified legal translator, nor for attending and completing a legal translation course (undergraduate degree in anything and excellent knowledge of both languages is often what's required).
With an MBA, you should maybe seek a job as a general manager. In any case, don't waste too much of your time like I have. I'm 40 years old, hold 3 master's degrees (Economics & Management, Political science and EU Law) and I haven't built any career for myself yet (for diverse reasons). Moreover, the translation industry has changed a lot in the last 5 years with the advent of AI and the resulting rise of relatively low paid, post-editing jobs...
Best wishes,
Mike
Edited by mdj_cm
5
Michael Hughes
@mdj_cm 40 is a spring chicken these days. :-) Not sure what the retirement age in France is but here in the UK we'll be lucky to retire before 70!
My day job is in marketing but something feels missing. There's a beauty and art to translation that gives you a whole different kind of satisfaction.
We have to do what the market demands at the end of the day though to make a living. Best of luck in your career from here on out; those degrees will pay off eventually I'm sure!
support
18 comments
Wouldn’t a fast connection make it easier to get jobs rather than harder? :-)
The RMPL rss feeder only checks every 60 seconds, so it can miss some jobs. Other than manually refreshing the page every few seconds, I’m not sure what more you can do to be honest. Some language pairs have a lot more jobs than others. You should get a weekly digest in your emails from Lionbridge showing the days and times during the previous week that had the most work coming through, so having a look at that may help give you an idea of when it’s worth keeping an extra close eye on the jobs feed.
Hi @Cris! :)
Thank you for sharing your question here. Also, thanks @Michael, for answering Cris' question. It's very informative.
Some language pairs(LPs) are not busy, and setting the interval is crucial. As Michael said, the weekly stats we send out might give you a helping hand on when to check the jobs feed. However, it is only for one LP, and if you are qualified for multiple LPs, you might want to check out the trends of another LP you think you might get more jobs.
Customers also can order the jobs to their preferred pool, and only the translators there can see those jobs. Maybe the majority of the jobs coming to your LP are like that.
If you have any other questions or concerns about it, please don't hesitate to contact the support team or me. I will do my best to help you out.
Have a nice day to both of you, and happy translating!
Many thanks// Rica
Thanks @Michael and @Rica... I do have many LPs and I know about the weekly stats as well. I was just trying to know if there is any other feed reader which is faster than RSS Feed Reader or RMPL feed reader.
Hello
I suggest you read this thread:
https://support.gengo.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360051723094-RSS
The advice given by @Michael of "manually refreshing the page every few seconds" will therefore not work as nothing will be updated for 60 seconds. The best advice is given in the above thread.
Hi Cris,
Try Feed Notifier! It is sometimes faster than Feeder and you don’t have to pay for fast updates. Good luck!
@AlexF That's useful to know, thank you. Occasionally though I've refreshed the page and caught jobs that weren't picked up by the RMPL feed, so always been a bit confused about this.
@Michael
The browser has a 60s refreshment limit and so does your RMPL feed.
They are not synchronized so one can pick up a job that the other "missed".
Thanks @Alex
@Bettina Thank you so much! I'll try that too.
Thanks @Betina
@Alex Great to know many thanks!
Thanks @AlexF and @Bettina for sharing inputs on this thread. :)
I apologize, Michael, if I can't suggest any RSS feeder that will be best for you. :( I'm not an expert with this type of tool.
I have asked for help from our support team to provide better information. So the RSS feeder and the dashboard are two separate things. It means the refresh rate of your RSS feeder will not affect your dashboard. When you manually refresh your dashboard between the feeder's interval period (60 seconds), you can see the jobs published within that time.
You can read more details in this support article.
Hello there,
The best and most important advice I would give to anyone seeking a steady and fair source of income in the translation business is to find a proper job and/or be active on hunting jobs on multiple B2B platforms (Proz, etc.). Gengo is like a trap. You spend more time hoping and actively waiting for a job than actually getting and working on one, and most of the time you get a lot of frustration in the process. In my country this business practice amounts to exploitation of labour even if you have consented to it and are free to leave anytime (there has been a precedent in law with Uber in France). Don't get me wrong, Gengo can be great when you are a beginner and wish to improve while getting paid, or as a very secondary source of income, but that's about it. No offense to the Gengo support staff as they are great and caring :)
Best luck to all
ps. even as a preferred translator you get to click on a job and see that you are too late on getting it... happened to me again last night. Sigh
ps2. a fast connection AND a fast computer (good processor+ram) which I have may help (by loading the job page faster), but only slightly (unless you have a very slow one), on top of aforesaid 60s rss readers.
So far I’ve found that Gengo has been fairly transparent about what the deal is. It’s not meant to be a way of earning a full time income as you say, but rather a side gig to a day job or something for full time translators to dip in to when they have quiet periods. If you’re a beginning translator, as you say, it’s a lot more lucrative than volunteering your services for free (or say doing a masters in translation) or something, given the remuneration and feedback you can get. The pro-level jobs in my pair I find pay close to what appears to be the going rate for a newbie translator trying to break in. It also takes out a lot of the hassle of having to find clients/negotiate with agencies that you might not have time for if translation isn’t your full time job.
I think more advice from seasoned pros like yourself about ways to progress one’s freelance career is something this forum could really benefit from - I was surprised not to see more of it actually when I first started coming.
Hello Michael Hughes,
Thanks for your reply. As you point out rightly, Gengo has been fairly transparent. That said, and I am not blaming them personally, their business model thrives and only thrives thanks to a large pool of translators who devote/waste much of their time actively waiting for a job (by being very focused on the rss refresher and ready at any time to start working straight away). When you appraise one's income per job, you need to take into account all the efforts/time/opportunity cost induced on your side to get and complete the job, not just the pay rate per se, as you know.
Regarding myself, I haven't built a proper career in the translation industry. I have been translating mostly for Gengo for the last 8 years (wordsmith/top scorer/pro badges), while working on websites of my own. However, I have specialized in legal translation (I hold a master's degree in law which may help, but anyone can do it) by completing a post-graduate level course in that very field last year. And now that I am a dad since sept. 01, and in dire need of cash, I'm in the process of applying to Translation Agencies, and an Appellate Court here in France in order to be certified. In the meantime, I'm also applying for virtually any job listings I get through Proz, including everything blockchain related.
Kind regards,
Michael (also)
@mdj_cm Félicitations pour la naissance de votre bébé!!! :-)
I'm rather envious of that master's degree in Law of yours! I've just completed an MBA, but Legal does seem to be a step above business translation in terms of rates in the translation industry (probably the highest of them all actually?).
All the advice I've had so far is that freelance translation as a career is definitely a case of playing the long game and being patient - while it might be tough now, it sounds like you've set yourself up nicely for a very bright future! Best of luck in your career and thanks again.
@Michael Hughes Many thanks for your kind message!
The highest paying translation jobs may actually be medical and other advanced technological stuff (e.g. engineering, chemistry), as well as legal, depending on the content, its end use and the client. For instance, if you are translating Terms and Conditions for any website, you will be closer to the lowest paying pro jobs, while important contracts, deeds or treaties, used by states or big companies and which need to be absolutely flawless, will pay more. Having a master's degree in Law (LLM in distance learning in my case) isn't mandatory for working as a certified legal translator, nor for attending and completing a legal translation course (undergraduate degree in anything and excellent knowledge of both languages is often what's required).
With an MBA, you should maybe seek a job as a general manager. In any case, don't waste too much of your time like I have. I'm 40 years old, hold 3 master's degrees (Economics & Management, Political science and EU Law) and I haven't built any career for myself yet (for diverse reasons). Moreover, the translation industry has changed a lot in the last 5 years with the advent of AI and the resulting rise of relatively low paid, post-editing jobs...
Best wishes,
Mike
@mdj_cm 40 is a spring chicken these days. :-) Not sure what the retirement age in France is but here in the UK we'll be lucky to retire before 70!
My day job is in marketing but something feels missing. There's a beauty and art to translation that gives you a whole different kind of satisfaction.
We have to do what the market demands at the end of the day though to make a living. Best of luck in your career from here on out; those degrees will pay off eventually I'm sure!