Kevin Lossner<p>Had an interesting "onboarding interview" for a <a href="https://c.im/tags/translation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>translation</span></a> project today. Not sure yet if we're a good fit, but the discussion crystallized my thoughts on a little functional disconnect in what many companies do to evaluate language service providers.</p><p>The subject of "test translations" has been argued over for all of the 20+ years I have been involved in commercial translation work, and I have no intention to add to that debate today. However....</p><p>Project managers, "vendor managers", etc. if you are trying to evaluate someone's suitability to work with your company on some project, perhaps instead of simply sending out some text in whatever format as a test translation, you should structure the test in a way that actually reflects your processes.</p><p>For example, if your company uses <a href="https://c.im/tags/Trados" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Trados</span></a> Studio and you expect prospective team members to translate packages from that tool, then for God's sake, don't just send out the text for the "test" as a PDF, DOCX or whatever. Send a damned package. And if you don't get an SDLRPX back for the SDLPPX you sent, well, you know that there may be other issues ahead. And doing things this way can also save you time and allow you to apply some automated QA as well.</p><p>Ditto for any other tool, be it <a href="https://c.im/tags/Phrase" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Phrase</span></a>, <a href="https://c.im/tags/Wordfast" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Wordfast</span></a>, <a href="https://c.im/tags/memoQ" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>memoQ</span></a> or whatever floats your boat. Do the "test" as a small assignment on your server, send out a package for your favored tool, etc. Too many times I have seen friends and corporate clients get burned by vetting processes that are really not fit for purpose. Don't join that club.</p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/xl8" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>xl8</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/translate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>translate</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/l10n" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>l10n</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/localization" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>localization</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/TranslationStudies" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>TranslationStudies</span></a></p>