Updated List of Salary & Compensation Surveys for the Translation Industry

Salary & compensation data can sometimes be difficult to find in the translation industry, but it does exist. To help you out, T&I Business's list of Salary & Compensation Surveys for the Translation Industry has recently been updated to include links to more than 15 surveys. You'll find that some of these surveys, like sites on the also recently updated list of Best Job Sites for Translation Management & Sales, include information for not only translators and interpreters, but also for less commonly known positions. In a presentation we have given together (at various seminars for translation students and also at the 2007 ATA Conference), Elizabeth M. Taylor, Clemencia Macias, and I have urged students and newcomers to the translation industry to consider some of these less commonly known job titles:

• Project Manager / Interpreter Manager
• Project Coordinator / Interpreter Coordinator
• Quality Assurance Manager
• Vendor Manager / Recruiter / Certification Manager
• Tester Evaluator
• Training Manager
• Localization Engineer
• Software Tester
• Web Producer
• Terminologist
• Multilingual Typesetter
• Account Manager / Sales Rep
• Voice Talent, Subtitler, or Other Media Related Positions
• Entrepreneur (Start your own company!) ...or try starting your own business under an established brand as part of something like the Elanex Certified Partner Program. The entrepreneurs and the sales people are those who have a shot at becoming the rainmakers and earning the most money in this industry.

Many students and industry newcomers have never even heard of these options, so it helps to spread the word and educate them about the possibilities. For my part, I know I hadn't considered more than half these job titles when I first decided to enter the industry.

The slides for the presentation mentioned above can be found here under the incredibly succinct title "Breaking into the Industry: How to Gain Experience when Employers will Not Give You Experience without Previous Experience"

T&I Business attempts to include reader input so that these resources continually improve and provide value to the translation community. If you know of additional surveys or job sites that should be listed here, please add a comment with a link and then subscribe above via email or RSS to be notified of the updated lists.