Navigating Localization Careers – Which Sector?

23rd October 2018

#Translation/Localization Project Management & QA

A guide to 10 major vertical markets in the translation and localization industry. With so many niches and sub-sectors, it can be hard to take a backward step and objectively assess your options and think clearly about the range of different business environments and project types that are available for your next move. But along with salary package and working environment, the sector of the industry in which you work can also have a big impact on your daily role, the skills you build and the long-term direction of your career. Whether working as part of an in-house team or within an agency, there are significant differences between different vertical markets. If you’re curious to know what’s our there, take a look through our quick-start guide to 10 of the most prominent sub-sectors of the global language services market. 1. Transcreation What’s involved: Transcreation is a term commonly used within the marketing and PR sectors, and usually refers to the local adaptation of promotional or advertising materials. A nuanced form of localization, transcreation deals with how to successfully adapt things such as ad campaigns, slogans and endorsements into new markets. As opposed to traditional translation, transcreation may involve creating entirely new content in the target language to accurately replicate the tone, style and context of the original in a way which will resonate with local audiences. What to expect: Exposure to marketing, PR and advertising communities, working with creative professionals and copywriters, developing an understanding of international brand management as well as online and offline marketing channels. 2. Legal & Financial What’s involved: Legal and financial are among the most highly specialized niches of the translations market owing to the high levels of accuracy demanded by documents supporting major financial decision-making or legal processes. Within legal a growing sub-sect is Intellectual Property translation (IP), which deals with the management of international patents and protection of innovation. What to expect: An environment centred on quality and specialism (from vendor selection to rigorous QA processes), potential late hours accommodating ‘rush’ projects, a geographical focus on major global cities, awareness of information governance and possible exposure to e-discovery and data forensics technology. 3. Gaming What’s involved: Supporting the videogaming sector blends multiple service and technology requirements. Localization of game content requires not only translating in-game content, but also access to resources such as foreign-language voice artists and recording studios for in-game audio and advanced graphic design capabilities. What to expect: Colleagues passionate about gaming (many gamers in their free time), understanding of platform nuances (mobile, PC, console), robust QA and testing services to detect and fix functional and linguistic bugs. 4. Life Sciences What’s involved: ‘Life Sciences’ is a broadly-used umbrella term that usually covers scientific industries including Medical Devices, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and related fields. Language projects within the sector can range from adapting marketing and promotional materials much like any other sector to supporting deeply specialized processes such as Clinical Trials and Linguistic Validation. What to expect: Focus on Quality Assurance (quality audits, securing and maintaining ISO certifications), highly specialized translator vendor base, awareness of regulatory constraints and requirements. 5. Multimedia What’s involved: Language services for the media and entertainment industries typically have a greater focus on audio localization (e.g. dubbing) and on-screen captioning / sub-titling. With an ongoing explosion in digitally-available content as platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video begin to generate their own content, multimedia localization continues to expand rapidly. What to expect: Local and in-country networks of recording studios and voice-over artists, captioning, dubbing and sub-titling, supporting traditional broadcast and digitally-distributed media, potential exposure to related markets including e-learning. 6. E-commerce What’s involved: E-commerce localization focuses on helping e-retailers successfully reach and engage customers on a global basis. With its origins in website localization, the industry has now evolved to include many elements of digital marketing to ensure that translated websites and digital stores not only read and function correctly for the user but also convert visitors to sales. What to expect: Multilingual SEO, User Experience / User Interface design, e-commerce infrastructure platforms (e.g. Magento, Shopify) omnichannel marketing and conversion rate optimization (CRO). 7. IT (Software & Hardware) What’s involved: The ‘IT’ bucket remains a large and complex sector in itself, incorporating giant technology corporations (such as Oracle, Facebook, Microsoft and Salesforce), up-and-coming Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, mobile apps and hardware providers (think Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Canon). Depending on where you are in the market, you could be working on the technology industry’s next hottest thing, or helping translate a troubleshooting manual update for an obsolete device. What to expect: Exposure to product development, internationalization, content management systems, localization engineering, QA and in-language testing and UX/UI design. 8. Industrial & Manufacturing What’s involved: A market sector traditionally centred on high volumes of technical documentation, Industrial & Manufacturing can include industries such as automotive, aerospace, mining, chemicals, construction and energy. Projects can be varied in nature, from technical manuals to health and safety communications or training materials. What to expect: Technical documentation and drawing, user manuals, installation and maintenance guides, regulatory compliance, R&D, catalogues and inventory lists. 9. Travel & Hospitality What’s involved: The global Travel & Hospitality niche combines a few elements from several other categories, with obvious components from E-Commerce and also Transcreation. Largely focused on website localization and online sales, this space focuses on successfully reaching global audiences for hotels, resorts, accommodation rental and the travel sectors (airlines, car rental etc). Along with site design, effective international branding and seamless user experience, multilingual SEO is also part of an integrated strategy to drive relevant traffic to sites. What to expect: Website localization, app development and adaptation, exposure to multicultural marketing and branding, social media strategy, booking engines & pricing algorithms and international search engine marketing. 10. Government What’s involved: Both at the national and regional level, government translation requires much of the same service delivery as other sectors whilst remaining commercially unique. Typically controlled by rigid procurement processes which aim to be both selective and inclusive simultaneously (ensuring service quality whilst sharing spend across a diverse range of business suppliers), the public sector can mean predictable long-term contract opportunities across areas like health services, defence, finance and communications. What to expect: Complex purchasing frameworks, highly structured bid & tender processes, focus on document and website translation projects, multi-year contracts, transcription and exposure to security clearance requirements. *** Are you looking to explore new areas of the global translation and localization market with your career? Adaptive Globalization places professionals in 30+ countries from our 4 office locations across the US and Europe. *** You can check out Adaptive Globalization’s full list of jobs across the translation, localization and interpreting sectors here.

Top 10: Weird and Wonderful Job Titles

19th August 2018

#Jobs

Here at Adaptive Globalization we spend our days and weeks searching for perfect candidates and it leads us to look in some of the dark corners of the job-seekers section of the internet. As we trawl through many webpages, job boards and speak with a lot of our clients and candidates, we come across some fantastic job titles – from Mischief Maker to Wizard of Lightbulb moments, I recently discovered that there’s a market for an Emoji Translator – what a job that would be, especially as Adweek reported in 2017 that more than 60 million emojis are used daily on Facebook, with a further 5 billion (plus!) on its Messenger platform. In the localization industry, it’s important we’re across every single language, even emojis! So, after a few laughs in the office, we thought we’d share our top 10 picks of the weird and wonderful we’ve discovered across a range of industries and have translated them for you… do you fancy doing any of these? Wizard of Light Bulb Moments – Marketing Director Emoji Translator – Not sure where to begin… Mischief Maker – Content Creator Chief Evangelist – Brand Ambassador Sales Ninja – Sales Executive Disruptor in Chief – Head of Daily Business Operations Problem Wrangler – Counsellor Talent Delivery Specialist – Recruitment Consultant Digital Overlord – Website Manager Great Service Agent – Receptionist I’m sure all of you have seen some weird and wonderful job titles in your time, why not share with us your favourite ones? Better still, find out if we can get you a new job with an even better title. Get in touch at alex.ross-scott@adaptiveglobalization.com, or check out what we've got on offer over at our jobs section.

The Translation Agency Industry’s Top-Earning Career Paths

13th July 2018

Adaptive’s recruiters are often asked by candidates how they can build their careers to raise their market value and earnings. Here we share our map of the paths which lead to some of the top-paying roles in the global language services industry. First things first - you don’t have to be a salesperson to make big bucks. Often when Adaptive is approached by candidates looking to up their earnings in the language services industry, there’s an expectation that only the high-flying BDMs and C-suite management are making top money. After all, BDMs are on commission plans and signing big customer deals can be very lucrative. And it’s true – top BDMs and sales managers can be making as much as anyone on this list. But salespeople not the only ones with strong pay packages in the language industry. In fact, we’ve left sales out of our list below to offer alternate options to translation and localization industry professionals looking to build their careers. So here we go - four routes to top-paying roles if cold calling isn’t your thing: 1. Business Unit Leadership e.g. VP Life Sciences, VP Engineering Broad-ranging VP titles usually signify a role that is a mix of client relations, operations and specific expertise in a particular area. Professionals in these positions are in charge of ‘business units’ which operate like mini-companies within the larger organization, focused on one specific area – such as services to the Life Sciences market or engineering services. This means the VP’s responsibility is wide, often covering a separate profit and loss account for their unit. VPs leading these areas can come from a variety of backgrounds, but have often worked their way up an internal hierarchy where their increasing experience makes them more and more valuable. They head up hiring, account management and ensure that their company’s service offering continues to be competitive and evolve with the market. Career Entry Point: Project Manager, Account Manager, BDM Key Skill: ability to combine rounded business skills with deep subject-matter expertise Average Salary Range: $100,000 - $160,000 + bonus 2. Internal Technology Management e.g. CTO, VP of Technology At the highest level, technology managers need to be more than just experts in localization workflows, and lead areas such as networking, security, compliance, training, technology change management, data recovery and more. Their focus is on the role technology plays in helping the company reach strategic goals and impacting overall P&L. Localization career paths typically go from specialist to generalist with candidates building a base in CAT tools, internal and client workflows and then rounding out generalist IT competencies to continue progressing. Career Entry Point: CAT Tools Specialist, Localization Technology Manager, Localization Engineer Average Salary Range: $120,000 - $180,000 + bonus Key skill: ability to visualize and implement technology changes which make high-value improvements to the global organization 3. Operations & General Management e.g. VP Operations, General Manager A great goal for Project Managers! Many of the industry’s top-paid professionals in operations (production) leadership started ‘in the trenches’ as PMs. Growth in this career channel comes from deep first-hand knowledge of internal workflows, aptitude for working directly with key customers and versatile operational skills – organization, planning, financial management and personnel leadership. As operations candidates move up the career ladder, they broaden their generalist business skills and combine them with their expert knowledge of localization processes to eventually step up and take overall responsibility. Career Entry Point: Project Manager, QA Manager Salary range: $120,000 - $150,000 + bonus Key skill: ability to design and maintain efficient teams and workflows to deliver reliably and profitably for customers 4. Client Solutions Development e.g. VP Client Solutions, Global Solutions Manager A specialist team within most LSPs, solutions professionals focus on bridging the gap between sales, production and IT. Their focus is building creative solutions for prospective and existing customers, which involves customizing, integrating and potentially selecting new tools to bring together clients’ existing technology systems and those used by the LSP. Many client solutions experts get their start in engineering and are well versed in CAT tools, but also work to develop strong client relationship skills throughout their careers. Often professionals in this space work on the client side for at least a few years, building inside knowledge from the buyer perspective. At the top of the tree, global managers for solutions teams build some of the most advanced workflows in commercial localization. Career Entry Point: Localization Engineer, CAT Tools Specialist, Project Manager, Account Manager Salary range: $130,000 - $150,000 + bonus Key skill: ability to think creatively to create unique technology-based workflow solutions * * * Adaptive Globalization recruits within the translation, localization and language technology sectors from entry-level to VP+. Feel free to get in touch to discuss hiring or career development – ray.green@adaptiveglobalization.com You can check out Adaptive Globalization’s vacancies for PMs, Account Managers, Loc Engineers, BDMs and more in our job listings here.

Sit down with Head of Client Services at Avantpage Translations

11th July 2018

#Project Manager

Joanna Oseman is the Head of Client Services at Avantpage Translations and has been with the company since 2016 where she started as a Project Manager. Since then she has moved into an Account Manager role and now is the Head of Client Services for the company - Shelby Crane, Recruitment Consultant at Adaptive Globalization in New York, caught up with Joanna to just to see what every day life is like at Adantpage, and how she managed to branch out within language service industry. Here's what we found out: SC: How did you get into the localization industry? JO: When I moved to the US after living for several years in France, I wanted to keep the language going and so I looked for work as a translator. I started with volunteer work, and eventually built a freelance career translating from French to English for a few core clients. After years of doing that I expanded to working with a team to offer other languages, creating my own small company and wearing all of the hats that this entails. I found that I loved the project and client management aspects that came along with this, but was ready to work with a larger company and move away from the solitary life of working for myself. I joined Avantpage as a Project Manager at first, moving to Account Manager shortly afterwards before heading our Client Services department. SC: In your role, what is your day-to-day like? JO: Pretty non-stop and very rarely the day I thought it was going to be! A mix of fielding client inquiries, answering new sales requests, checking in with my team and our Operations colleagues, planning for upcoming projects and contracts, etc. All of our teams work closely together, so there are a lot of meetings. We’re also working to become a more data driven company, and so I have several long term projects underway that have to do with tracking and measuring various information and processes throughout our company. Face to face client meetings are definitely my favourite part of the job, so I also spend time scheduling and preparing presentations and business reviews. SC: What makes Avantpage Translations an exciting place to work? JO: The fast paced environment leaves no room for feeling bored or wondering what to do next - I can’t remember ever experiencing that feeling here. And we really have a great team of fun and passionate people. Everyone here works with Avantpage because they care about the industry and about the LEP communities that we serve, so we’re constantly brainstorming and working to power through our workloads together. Our team is pretty spread out (Davis, CA; Reno, NV; Mexico City, Mexico and Warsaw, Poland) but despite the distances, we work really closely together. It’s an interesting way to get to know people from other places and cultures and we’re a close-knit group! SC: What’s your vision for the industry in the next few years? JO: Obviously there’s a lot of automation heading our way, which is really interesting to be part of. We always have this top of mind when looking at the optimization of our processes, but also in terms of what Project Management will look like down the road. PMs are already taking on more roles than they had five or ten years ago, and I’m sure this will continue to evolve. At Avantpage we also stay very aware of immigration trends and how this will affect what we do. Because we work in highly-regulated fields (healthcare and elections), we see the demand for our work increasing as the needs of LEP populations in the US develop. SC: What advice would you give to people who are interested in what you do? JO: My best advice is to get as much experience as you can in all aspects of the industry that interest you, in order to figure out your best fit. I’ve worked in several different areas, from translation to project management and vendor recruiting - all of that led me to the role that I have now and continues to inform decisions that contribute to the overall success of our client partnerships. SC: Avantpage has recently gone through a rebranding. Can you tell us a bit more this? JO: This process kicked off to mark Avantpage’s 20th anniversary in 2016 and was an opportunity to take a step back and look at who we are and why we do what we do. We did a lot of story-telling and the entire process was a collaboration between our various teams. During the rebrand we identified our three core values: rigor, empathy, and opportunity. Working from this basis, we wanted to use the occasion to take a stand for what we really believe in at Avantpage - helping our clients to empower immigrant communities through language access. Our Head of Marketing, Sabra Rubinstein, coordinated all aspects of the re-brand, which involved a complete revamp of our website, social media, and outreach/marketing materials. We’re all super excited about it and we’ve been getting great feedback from our partners and clients. SC: What is the best advice you've ever received? JO: I have a couple of colleagues in particular at Avantpage who give me so much daily advice that I couldn’t pick one piece as being the best - it’s one of my favourite things about our team here. A practical bit of wisdom that I always try to follow is to be wary of making rash decisions, especially when feeling fired up or emotional. I have a tendency to be impulsive, but with business as well as life decisions, I am careful now to take a bit more time - to let something sit overnight, talk it through with others, and look at things from all angles. It’s definitely a balancing act as I’m constantly working on projects where acting quickly is key, but taking a deep breath first is never a bad thing! You can reach out to Shelby, or Joanna, on their respective LinkedIn profiles. Check out some similar roles to Joanna's, Adaptive Globalization is always looking for top candidates across many aspects in the Localization industry - see our jobs, here.