Unnecessary annoying zoom meetings

Kay Denney wrote:

If your Zoom meetings don't lead to you getting jobs, maybe you're doing something wrong.

- make sure you have a nice background (shelves of dictionaries and interesting books, I would have books and other items representing my various specialities: CDs by musicians I work for, reproductions of artwork by artists for whom I have translated exhibition cartels and catalogues. I'll point these out as I mention the various jobs I have done)
- work on your posture, sitting up rather than slouching, looking interested and interesting, smiling, no picking noses, scratching itches, or any other annoying habits you might have (I was horrified, in pre-internet days, to see a video of myself while demonstrating something, twiddling with my hair and scratching my nose where my hair had tickled it, and ever since, I've been very careful to use my hands only to put my point across),
- practise talking about your work, highlighting jobs that might be of interest to the client, work you've done for their competitors, your knowledge of their industry, your working methods, ensuring that you sound like you enjoy your work (as opposed to "reading my CV out loud" which sounds excruciatingly boring),
- if you can get them to laugh, you'll increase your chances no end, so practise slipping little jokes in (I often get a laugh telling them about my little mottos like "quality control is like housework, nobody notices unless you've not bothered", or I tell them how I used to have a post-it on my screen that said "cut the crap" as a reminder that English needs to be more concise and to-the-point than French, where you need to wax lyrical on occasion, and use long sentences to show that you're clever).

Baran Keki wrote:

that's one way of establishing whether or not the person is who he/she says he/she is, and not some scammer who's stolen somebody else's CV and masquerading as an English to Dutch/Bulgarian/Slovakian/Georgian translator, looking to get e-mail notifications from agencies to outsource those jobs to bottom-feeders on Upwork.
Some sort of vetting is necessary to separate wheat from chaff. Anybody can get into agencies' books by simply clicking on the 'Join Us' button. I suggested (and still think it's a good idea) providing references who would vouch for one's ability and skills as a translator in the past, but, for some reason, it got a very negative reaction from forum members. Zoom calls sound extreme and annoying. Nobody has ever asked me to do that as of yet. I don't even have a camera & microphone for my desktop computer.

Anna1307 wrote:
Yes, I always provide references. And I passed their assessments and tests, what else do they want?
And I understand that they want to make sure it's me, but 30 minutes to an hour??? It's rediculous.

Anna1307 wrote:

Hi there,

I have noticed that some clients or translation agencies tend to ask for a zoom/skype meeting after I successfully applied for a job or when a test translation was successful. Looking back, all of these calls were an absolute waste of time, because they are telling me things that they could have easily written in a short email but occupy 30 minutes or an hour of my time instead.

Or they ask me about my experience, which is stated very detailed in my resume. And I basically read my resume to them. What is the point? I really start to feel annoyed by these calls as they are 100 % useless and stealing my time. I understand they want to get to know the translator, but why are these call never efficient or helpful?

I was wondering if you guys are often asked for (unnecessary) zoom meetings in the beginning stages of a new job and how you go about it. I am at a point where I just want to decline them, but in a nice way.

Best regards,
Anna

Michael Newton wrote:

Most likely some agencies want to see what color you are. I notice some European agencies require a photo in their onboarding process.
This would not be permitted in the US (despite the rampant racism in the US).

Anna1307 wrote:


I understand what you mean, but time is a valuable resource that I don't like to give away freely, not in my private life and especially not in my professional life. I have a problem with people who don't respect other people's time. I am not an employee, I am a freelancer. Those people don't seem to get that, our time is worth something. If they assess my skills and my test gets approved, and they have my references in the resume, if they have doubts about my reputation, there is no need for any "hanging around on Zoom" in my opinion.

Anna1307 wrote:

They ask for these calls when I already got the job or passed the test, as part of the onboarding process.

I couldn't care less what they think about my background and my body language. And neither am I in the position of having to chum up to anyone, it's take it or leave it. I get daily requests from all over the place.

The days of behaving like an employee are over.

They'll do most of the talking anyway. Just keep working on some other project of yours, or read or study or something, and throw in a random "yes, sure" or "I understand" every once in a while so they're satisfied that you're paying attention.

Wow second post of the day in which a translator seems to think they can just churn out translations like a machine and never mind being sociable.

If you're getting plenty of work like that, by all means brush these people off.

But it sounds like you don't want that kind of relationship with your clients, so you do you.

Anna1307 wrote:

I have switched the camera off by default. I feel it invades my privacy. But can you believe that some have the audacity to ask me to turn the camera on?

Michael Newton wrote:

Most likely some agencies want to see what color you are. I notice some European agencies require a photo in their onboarding process.
This would not be permitted in the US (despite the rampant racism in the US).