| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11] > | Blast your CV to 16000 Agencies? Has anyone tried it? Thread poster: Silvia M.
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| Talk to the spammers | May 17, 2013 |
David Hayes wrote:
Call me an old trad, but I find it a great pity that the courtesy formula "Dear Sir/Madam" is now regarded as an automatic sign than the following email is of no interest and merits no more than the spam box.
Well, talk to the spammers. They are the ones to blame for making candidate emails totally unwelcome.
| | | | Silvia M. 
Germany
Local time: 20:30
Member (2011)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you for your answers | May 17, 2013 |
Thank you for your numerous answers and your interest in this topic.
I am fairly established as a translator right now but could still do with a little bit of extra marketing.
This service does not really appeal to me a lot because I do not like not being in control to what happens to my personal data. i would hate it if they sent my email to a client I already work with.
I am not convinced of this service at all and as you say at the end of the day it is... See more Thank you for your numerous answers and your interest in this topic.
I am fairly established as a translator right now but could still do with a little bit of extra marketing.
This service does not really appeal to me a lot because I do not like not being in control to what happens to my personal data. i would hate it if they sent my email to a client I already work with.
I am not convinced of this service at all and as you say at the end of the day it is outright spamming.
Keep sending more posts though. They are really interesting to read.
Silvia ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:30
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I believe that sort of thing is illegal and could be construed as a Denial of Service attack.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:30
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Paul Stevens wrote: David Hayes wrote:
Call me an old trad, but I find it a great pity that the courtesy formula "Dear Sir/Madam" is now regarded as an automatic sign than the following email is of no interest and merits no more than the spam box. On the contrary, I would consider an email beginning in this way as at least evidence of a certain education.
Having recently looked at over 60 agency websites in the UK and elsewhere, I can vouch for the fact than only about three of them listed a contact person whom one could address by name. Many have an online form to fill in, and some have a dedicated email address for freelancer applications. But almost none seem to expect the first contact to be sent to a specific person. This makes perfect sense to me as people change jobs/ are away/ ill etc. fairly often, making it hard to keep websites up-to-date. I couldn't agree more!
I find it regrettable that agencies do not take the trouble to read e-mails sent in by translators who have taken the trouble to look at their websites, find contact information and introduce themselves. Ricardo, as an example, I have taken a quick look at your website and I see no mention of whom a prospective candidate should contact, there's just a generic translate@ e-mail address. Credit should be given to translators who have undertaken active marketing rather than simply carpet-bombing providers with a job ad. How many times have I been contacted via a directory to do a job for an agency that allegedly put my details on their database years ago? It strikes me as a waste of everybody's time.
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| Treated as spam | May 17, 2013 |
David Hayes wrote:
Call me an old trad, but I find it a great pity that the courtesy formula "Dear Sir/Madam" is now regarded as an automatic sign than the following email is of no interest and merits no more than the spam box. On the contrary, I would consider an email beginning in this way as at least evidence of a certain education.
Having recently looked at over 60 agency websites in the UK and elsewhere, I can vouch for the fact than only about three of them listed a contact person whom one could address by name. Many have an online form to fill in, and some have a dedicated email address for freelancer applications. But almost none seem to expect the first contact to be sent to a specific person. This makes perfect sense to me as people change jobs/ are away/ ill etc. fairly often, making it hard to keep websites up-to-date.
I couldn't agree more! [/quote]
I find it regrettable that agencies do not take the trouble to read e-mails sent in by translators who have taken the trouble to look at their websites, find contact information and introduce themselves. Ricardo, as an example, I have taken a quick look at your website and I see no mention of whom a prospective candidate should contact, there's just a generic translate@ e-mail address. Credit should be given to translators who have undertaken active marketing rather than simply carpet-bombing providers with a job ad. How many times have I been contacted via a directory to do a job for an agency that allegedly put my details on their database years ago? It strikes me as a waste of everybody's time.
I couldn't agree more with you two. I take my time to look at agencies websites and see if I'm interested to work with them. Then I write a personalized e-mail along with a personalized cover letter. I rarely get an answer and it is really disencouraging to think that I'm being treated as spam.
[Edited at 2013-05-17 12:19 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:30
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| I don't save trees with toilet paper | May 17, 2013 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
So it is OK to spam 16,000 people and cause time losses of 22 hours (16,000 people x 5 seconds) in the industry if you get a personal revenue of over US$ 99?
This argument reminds me of those people who want to save the Amazon by ensuring that users of toilet paper don't waste the first square of it. You can increase the amount of everything by simply multiplying it, but that doesn't prove a point. If you're going to do this type of math, you might as well also calculate how much time the agencies would have wasted trying to find the translator.
If only 10% of the addresses are valid, and only 10% of those respond, then you still have over 150 agencies who don't have to spend ten minutes each trying to find the translator. That represents a saving of 25 hours, by the way. We can also calculate the cost of wear and tear on the keyboards and mice used by those agencies, etc, etc. It proves nothing.
Tom in London wrote:
I believe that sort of thing is illegal and could be construed as a Denial of Service attack.
No, a DOS attack targets a single recipient.
| | | | Diana Coada (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:30
Portuguese to English
+ ...
David Hayes wrote:
Call me an old trad, but I find it a great pity that the courtesy formula "Dear Sir/Madam" is now regarded as an automatic sign than the following email is of no interest and merits no more than the spam box. On the contrary, I would consider an email beginning in this way as at least evidence of a certain education.
Having recently looked at over 60 agency websites in the UK and elsewhere, I can vouch for the fact than only about three of them listed a contact person whom one could address by name. Many have an online form to fill in, and some have a dedicated email address for freelancer applications. But almost none seem to expect the first contact to be sent to a specific person. This makes perfect sense to me as people change jobs/ are away/ ill etc. fairly often, making it hard to keep websites up-to-date.
How is ''Dear Sir/Madam'' disrespectful or lazy, or a sure sign of a spam email?
| | | | | Faulty reasoning | May 17, 2013 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
If only 10% of the addresses are valid, and only 10% of those respond, then you still have over 150 agencies who don't have to spend ten minutes each trying to find the translator.
Your reasoning is faulty here: you are assuming that the translators using the spamming service are what the agencies are looking for. Given the many language combinations, specialisations, and levels of quality and qualification, the chances that an agency looking for someone at that exact moment receives an email from a good candidate are infinitesimal.
Furthermore, the only information we have about the success of all this spamming is what the spammer claims to achieve.
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David Hayes wrote:
Call me an old trad, but I find it a great pity that the courtesy formula "Dear Sir/Madam" is now regarded as an automatic sign than the following email is of no interest and merits no more than the spam box. On the contrary, I would consider an email beginning in this way as at least evidence of a certain education.
Having recently looked at over 60 agency websites in the UK and elsewhere, I can vouch for the fact than only about three of them listed a contact person whom one could address by name. Many have an online form to fill in, and some have a dedicated email address for freelancer applications. But almost none seem to expect the first contact to be sent to a specific person. This makes perfect sense to me as people change jobs/ are away/ ill etc. fairly often, making it hard to keep websites up-to-date.
I agree!
I always have a good look at an agency's website and do suitable research but it is often impossible to find any names on them. I do however find a statement that freelancer applications are welcome! Who shall I address my email to then?
Well done to agencies who include a page where they introduce the people behind them.
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:30
French to English
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| "Sir/Madam" sign of spam | May 17, 2013 |
Diana Coada, BA ACIL wrote:
How is ''Dear Sir/Madam'' disrespectful or lazy, or a sure sign of a spam email?
I think this depends on what type of e-mail you usually receive to the address in question.
If for some reason you're used to receiving lots of genuine e-mails that start with "Dear Sir/Madam" to your address, well great... nobody is saying you can't receive them if you really want them.
But there are many other people for whom, nowadays, this is a sign of spam, for a few reasons:
- You may well have an e-mail address that indicates who you're writing to (why would you possibly write to an e-mail address starting "neil.coffey@..." and start it "Dear Mystery Recipient"?
- It's no longer 1863... for mass mailings that you've genuinely signed up to, we have now invented the technology to allow such mailings to start "Dear ". The majority of "genuine" mass mailings will tend to address you by name.
But you have to weigh things up for your particular situation.
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:30
French to English
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| Experienced the receiving end... | May 17, 2013 |
Silvia M. wrote:
If yes, what was your experience with it?
Lile Nicole, I have experienced being on the *receiving* end of such e-mails. Apart from the issues she has mentioned, another is that... believe it or not... you won't be the only person in the universe that has thought of using such a service.
So in practice what happens is that the "agency" will be receiving on a daily basis a number of e-mails from different people that, due to their formulaic similarity, blatantly look like they've been sent from such a system. (e.g. Everybody thinks of attaching their CV as "CV.doc" rather than "CV.pdf" or "CV-JamesWilson-PhysicsTranslator.doc" etc, and mysteriously 5 different people think of entitling their e-mail "Excellent French translator available" on the same day). I have now trained myself to the point of being able to press the 'delete' button without even opening the e-mail.
Worse, agencies will be deleting such e-mails because a few actually contain viruses or links to malicious web sites.
Also... I'm receiving numerous such e-mails and I'm not even an "agency" as such. (I do occasionally advertise for collaborators on specialist jobs from direct clients, but I'm certainly not an "agency" to the level where I would be expecting to receive numerous CVs on a daily basis.) That gives you an idea of the quality of their database.
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 14:30
German to English
| 16,000 agencies?! Stop the madness! | May 17, 2013 |
Sixteen thousand agencies are probably fifteen thousand more than the world needs. Every new agency adds to the drag on rate increases. I can't see how anyone starting an agency these days can possibly expect to make any money.
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Silvia M.
Germany
Local time: 20:30
Member (2011)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Ha, ha, ha so true | May 17, 2013 |
Kevin Fulton wrote:
Sixteen thousand agencies are probably fifteen thousand more than the world needs. Every new agency adds to the drag on rate increases. I can't see how anyone starting an agency these days can possibly expect to make any money.
That is so true, everybody wants to have an agency instead of putting in the hard work and become a really skilled translator. While the world of agencies is growing the world of skilled translators is shrinking. If agency numbers keep increasing at this rate pushing the rates down the profession will eventually become so unprofitable that all the good people are going to leave it and do something else.
[Edited at 2013-05-17 16:59 GMT]
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Silvia M. wrote:
If agency numbers keep increasing at this rate pushing the rates down the profession will eventually become so unprofitable that all the good people are going to leave it and do something else.
This is a bit off-the-record, but nevertheless:
Avoiding this situation is in our hand: simply work for agencies who are ready to pay a reasonable rate, which will mean that they have a professional, skilled team capable of selling a good rate to the customer, and not simply trying to win by cutting down on the rate.
In my opinion, both bad agencies (those without selling/management abilities) and bad translators (coincidentally enough, those without selling/management abilities, including those who resort to spamming services) will be forced to leave the market and do something else, so let's start by working for sensible agencies only and use sensible marketing methods.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:30
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Formulaic similarity is actually a good thing | May 17, 2013 |
Neil Coffey wrote:
So in practice what happens is that the "agency" will be receiving on a daily basis a number of e-mails from different people that, due to their formulaic similarity, blatantly look like they've been sent from such a system.
I have now trained myself to the point of being able to press the 'delete' button without even opening the e-mail. ... Worse, agencies will be deleting such e-mails because a few actually contain viruses or links to malicious web sites.
I think that a human resources person prefers it if applicants follow a set formula, even if that means being unable to distinguish easily between human and non-human senders, because sticking to a convention saves time and effort for the recipient. Uniqueness actually interferes with a personnel manager's job. A recipient who expects to receive applications will more likely delete interesting, unconventional mails than boring formulaic ones.
If it is part of your job to review applications, and you regularly delete mails just because the subject line is similar to that of spam, then I think you're not doing your job properly.
Also... I'm receiving numerous such e-mails and I'm not even an "agency" as such.
Aah, but that is the crux of the matter, isn't it? I suspect most people who reply to the type of question originally asked in this thread are not agencies and do not welcome applications, and for that reason they regard these mails as intrusive.
I understand that many freelancers have unfortunately been added to such lists and therefore regularly receive applications that are completely irrelevant to them, but that is not because the list idea is a bad idea -- it is simply because they're not suppose to be on the list.
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