New agency policy?
Thread poster: Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:59
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
+ ...
Nov 23, 2018

I thought I had seen them all, but this one is new to me.

Yesterday I signed in on a Proz job from an agency with good rates on Blueboard, complete with CV, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Got an answer 2 hours later, inclusive a test translation (+ 200 words), information about the wishes of the client and the request to deliver the same or the next day.

Sofar so good, but I wanted to know if the agency would accept my rates + conditions, so I wrote them.

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I thought I had seen them all, but this one is new to me.

Yesterday I signed in on a Proz job from an agency with good rates on Blueboard, complete with CV, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Got an answer 2 hours later, inclusive a test translation (+ 200 words), information about the wishes of the client and the request to deliver the same or the next day.

Sofar so good, but I wanted to know if the agency would accept my rates + conditions, so I wrote them.



"Thank you for your quick response, you guys are moving fast.

But before I do anything, lets talk business first. I suppose you received my reaction on your job add, and had a look at my CV and my website, with my conditions and prices. So, I first want to know if they are acceptable for you (if not, then there is no need for me to spend time on a test translation)."



Then I received the following answer:


"Hi Rob,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, our accounting team assesses the rates once we have the results of the test. I am sorry but we are not able to discuss about it before the results.

Thanks and kind regards,"


Assessing rates after the (test)job has been done? Not being able to discuss it before I start? What is going on here???? Is this normal policy or a new phenomenon?


[Edited at 2018-11-23 16:01 GMT]
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Fabio Descalzi
Fabio Descalzi  Identity Verified
Uruguay
Local time: 18:59
Member (2004)
German to Spanish
+ ...
Probably an umbrella response Nov 23, 2018

I guess they were expecting you to quietly deliver the test translation and afterwards offer you a lower rate, no matter how good your test translation was.

Katalin Szilárd
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Dan Lucas
Tradupro17
Dmytro Nehrii
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 22:59
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Not surprising Nov 23, 2018

Sometimes agencies keep different "tiers" of providers: if you are good but not exactly cheap, then they may use you only when they need your level of expertise and can afford your services based on what their client is paying.

That said, this is just an example of sloppy communication from the agency. Why explain their procedure? They could just have waited until they were ready to either accept your rates or negotiate.

People are clueless these days.

[Edited at
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Sometimes agencies keep different "tiers" of providers: if you are good but not exactly cheap, then they may use you only when they need your level of expertise and can afford your services based on what their client is paying.

That said, this is just an example of sloppy communication from the agency. Why explain their procedure? They could just have waited until they were ready to either accept your rates or negotiate.

People are clueless these days.

[Edited at 2018-11-23 18:32 GMT]
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Tradupro17
Malvina Dyli
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:59
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
You did the right thing Nov 23, 2018

Robert Rietvelt wrote:
but this one is new to me.

I believe this quasi-bait and switch has been discussed before, but hopefully it is not widespread.

You asked them a fair and pertinent question. I would not do a test without hammering out rates beforehand. If they were to come back to me with the response you received, I would politely explain that I do not work that way and wrap things up.

For one thing, I feel that allowing agencies to set the agenda before they have even paid you a penny sets a bad precedent. I treat my clients with respect and am always polite, but my approach is that it is a relationship of equals.

I would bet that this kind of inflexibility, or this attempt to stonewall you, indicates that the client sees freelancers as more or less fungible cogs in the machine.

Regards,
Dan


Peter Leeflang
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Peter Shortall
Peter Shortall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Romanian to English
+ ...
Jumping through hoops Nov 23, 2018

A PM at an agency said that to me once when I tried to negotiate rates for an upcoming large project. Her repeated attempts at stalling the discussion about rates raised my suspicions.

I think a likely reason for leaving this issue until the end of the process is that PMs calculate that we will be more likely to accept lower rates if we have already jumped through a lot of bureaucratic hoops before getting to that issue. If we've already sent off our CV and qualifications, filled in
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A PM at an agency said that to me once when I tried to negotiate rates for an upcoming large project. Her repeated attempts at stalling the discussion about rates raised my suspicions.

I think a likely reason for leaving this issue until the end of the process is that PMs calculate that we will be more likely to accept lower rates if we have already jumped through a lot of bureaucratic hoops before getting to that issue. If we've already sent off our CV and qualifications, filled in a load of forms and done a test, we'll be more willing to accept a rate lower than the one we'd normally ask for precisely because of all the time we've already invested in the sign-up process. We don't want all that to have been a waste of time. That seems to be the thinking, from an agency's point of view.
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Álvaro Espantaleón Moreno
Rosalind Haigh
Philippe Etienne
Dan Lucas
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 21:59
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Well... Nov 23, 2018

“Unfortunately, our accounting team assesses the rates once we have the results of the test.”

What in the world do they mean by that?

As I’ve been translating full-time since 1985 I always find amusing when I’m asked for a test, though I understand that sometimes it might be useful to see how a translator treats this or that particular sentence (in literature or journalism, for instance). If I’m really interested in that job I'll be happy to do a short transl
... See more
“Unfortunately, our accounting team assesses the rates once we have the results of the test.”

What in the world do they mean by that?

As I’ve been translating full-time since 1985 I always find amusing when I’m asked for a test, though I understand that sometimes it might be useful to see how a translator treats this or that particular sentence (in literature or journalism, for instance). If I’m really interested in that job I'll be happy to do a short translation test (paid or unpaid with 300/400 words maximum), providing we have already agreed on price and payment and there is no deadline set for the test, so I can do it at my own pace. I would rather do a translation test for free than sending diplomas, references and the like and having to fill endless forms. But some agencies ask for everything including the “kitchen sink”…
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Malvina Dyli
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Steve R.
Steve R.
United States
Russian to English
It's honesty...which is the best policy. Nov 23, 2018

They honestly tried to bamboozle you...

Katalin Szilárd
 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 22:59
Member
English to Italian
Not new Nov 24, 2018

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

I thought I had seen them all, but this one is new to me.


Not new to me. I've seen this kind of approach more times than I care to remember, or other variants that included signing an NDA before discussing rates, entering details in some database/document, etc.

As always, the point is clients can do (and often do) whatever they like and dictate whatever terms and conditions they prefer, as long as there's someone willing to acquiesce, so unfortunately sometimes what should naturally be a one to one rapport between client and service provider tends to become a standardized, unidirectional and hierarchical flow where the client just tells the service provider what to do, how and when...


 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
This agency is honest Nov 24, 2018

although their approach is questionable. You should be grateful to them for being honest with you. It would be even worse for them to accept your rate, have you take the test, and assign no job to you even if you do well with the test.

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 22:59
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Robert Nov 24, 2018

Robert Rietvelt wrote:
Then I received the following answer:
"Unfortunately, our accounting team assesses the rates once we have the results of the test.


It may be that their onboarding process is actually set up that way, but that would be stupid.

It is more likely that this is a hook reply from an agency who knows that they're not going to match your rate, but are banking on the odds that you might decide to work for that low rate anyway since you have already put in so much effort to register for it.

[The only way in which this would not be stupid is if they actually pay translators less (or more) if they're less good (or more good) at translating. It may be that they have good and bad proofreaders (i.e. expensive and cheap ones) and they're pairing good translators with poor proofreaders (and vice versa) to keep the costs down. In other words, if you're a good translator, they'll pay more, because they can save on the proofreading costs. However, if this was so, then the least they can do is tell you what their rate range is and what method they use to evaluate your test translation.]


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 22:59
Member
English to Italian
Honest about what? Nov 24, 2018

jyuan_us wrote:

This agency is honest

although their approach is questionable. You should be grateful to them for being honest with you. It would be even worse for them to accept your rate, have you take the test, and assign no job to you even if you do well with the test.


The only thing they've been "honest" about is that they're not willing to discuss rates before the test, but that has nothing to to with actual work. Having to choose between "discuss rates > take test > ... > wait to see if anything comes through" and "take test > discuss rates > ... > wait to see if anything comes through", I'd say the second is definitely much worse than the first, as the chances of wasting your time are much higher.

As for the test, it seems quite unlikely to me that a client will be prepared to pay a higher/lower rate solely based on how someone performed on a random 200 words test... It's either a pass or not. In order to judge what someone is really worth you have to actually work with them and see how things go on a much larger scale, for a longer period of time and in "real" conditions.


Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
No matter if you like it or not, this practice is not rare Nov 24, 2018

I have never taken a test without my rates being agreed upon, like most of you.

However, I know at least 5 more companies would have you work on their tests before any negotiation about rates can be initiated. At least one of them has stated very clearly that the translators' rates will depend on the their test scores.

This implies that many translators out there would accept this practice.





[Edited at 2018-11-24 11:58 GMT]


Nikki Scott-Despaigne
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
The observation about its being honest was made in a satirical way Nov 24, 2018

Mirko Mainardi wrote:

jyuan_us wrote:

This agency is honest

although their approach is questionable. You should be grateful to them for being honest with you. It would be even worse for them to accept your rate, have you take the test, and assign no job to you even if you do well with the test.


The only thing they've been "honest" about is that they're not willing to discuss rates before the test, but that has nothing to to with actual work. Having to choose between "discuss rates > take test > ... > wait to see if anything comes through" and "take test > discuss rates > ... > wait to see if anything comes through", I'd say the second is definitely much worse than the first, as the chances of wasting your time are much higher.

As for the test, it seems quite unlikely to me that a client will be prepared to pay a higher/lower rate solely based on how someone performed on a random 200 words test... It's either a pass or not. In order to judge what someone is really worth you have to actually work with them and see how things go on a much larger scale, for a longer period of time and in "real" conditions.


That's all I can say.


 


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