By Kiranmayee. Y
 
In her lecture about personal branding Prof. Ioanna Daskalopoulou, Greece discusses about the key points in which a language professional or a translator needs to be strong to meet the requirements of the challenges coming up for their profession in these modern days. They are dotted down by her as:
Building & Maintaining Professional Identity
(Personal Branding)
-Customer Prospecting
-Freelancing vs. In-house translation (pros and cons)
As a language professional or a translator one has to work hard and prove themselves as dependable translators for handling projects independently or within a team. They apart from working as an in-house or freelancer have to maintain their Personal Identity. Every translator as their own signature work they are proficient and perfect in some fields and work with an ease with in that radius, but to prove and improve their capabilities every translator has to build their capacities in other fields also. For example at the beginning of my career I was only a language specialist as the office called me working under the directions of the process manager and head of the language department. Process manager was the person who wants to follow the rules and regulations and see that the target is reached per day and it was well kept, when it comes for the head of languages it was their duty not only to look after the smooth run of the process but also to communicate with clients and to stabilize the process. Clients from all over the Europe had different types of queries running and each and every individual client wanted the process to be running in their way, these were to be tackled softly without disturbing the normal office routine. There were many challenges faced, be it a process development, stabilization, translation, handling phone calls, answering queries via calls and mails, meetings, conferences, interpretation, and in some other case preparing the employees to be able to withstand and make themselves understandable and also to understand what’s being told or done when deployed in other countries where the communication language was not English.
 
The above mentioned all are related to building and maintaining professional identity even while working in a team. Both In-house and freelance translators are expected to maintain similar kind of qualities to deliver on time, maintain quality standards and error free work to the core translation. The rules regarding the selection of a project may vary from in-house to a freelancer, as an in-house employee you will be answerable to your team manager and others related so you may like the project or not there is no question of rejection. For a freelancer he may accept or may not according to the job being offered.
 
To work as a freelancer one should be multi-talented he/she needs to be up-to-date not only with their target language but also with the source language this is a continuous non ending process of learning there should be no scope for gaps about the current changes taking place around the world in regards to culture, tradition, communication, developing new techniques of communicating tools, soft wares, technical changes in economical, geographical, social, legal etc., these are some factors in which a freelancer must have an eye and be knowledgeable enough. Working in only one specified field will not help a freelancer to grow diversification, adaptability, time management, knowhow of equipment and different types of tools is also a must.
 
7 years back when I started as a freelancer I was not even aware of these terminologies it was like a walk taken down in a forest, there was a need to create a path all by myself today when I look back I feel that I achieved only 0-1% in this field this is where I became an Intern in Modlingua from where I came to know how to build, maintain, get more clients, create a professional work atmosphere. Etc.
 
Technical development also is a must and the knowledge of using different apparatus is also a need for every translator. There is the growing need for the world of communication and media for people like us. Today’s world is growing out fast into a small village where everyone wants to know what’s happening on the other side, to develop all these communications into understandable words, content, text, image description etc., there is also a needy requirement for translators who can put all these views into the other language.
 
Given a chance a translator should be able to travel around the world sitting before his system itself the expression and word can rule the world itself. These are the main tools of a translator. The fast growing economies, social bounding, business, commerce are giving chance to an aspiring translators and interpreters like us. Entrepreneurship skills are also a must the translator must know how he/she should present themselves and their skills. Developing and learning entrepreneurial skills will help them to have a wide choice of clients.

Profile Link http://www.modlingua.com/interns/399-kiranmayee-y.html