Poll: What has contributed most to your professional success besides language skills? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What has contributed most to your professional success besides language skills?".
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The harder you work, the luckier you get! There have been a few times in my life where I was in the right place at the right time.
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| There is an important option missing | Jul 27, 2025 |
Networking skills. It seems that people who are highly skilled at networking are very successful at landing non-stop translation work and even inhouse jobs. Being reliable, accurate and dedicated is fine but without the right connections, especially in today's translation world, none of that will guarantee you getting work.
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| Reliability and Client Relationships. | Jul 28, 2025 |
Most of my clients reached out to me because I have developed a blog site, projects portfolio, and strategy which make my work more reliable. But, I would say that what makes my clients continue working with me is my great relationship with them. I am very careful, organized, kind, friendly, and helpful with my clients. I think that the soft skills are not only complementary, but also necessary to continue working.
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| What is luck? | Jul 28, 2025 |
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
The harder you work, the luckier you get! There have been a few times in my life where I was in the right place at the right time.
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
Attributed to Seneca (and others)
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| All of these | Jul 28, 2025 |
There are multiple areas that you need to be at least adequate in to succeed. You can be a brilliant translator but if you aren't reliable no one will want to work with you. You can be a reliable translator doing good work but if you don't market yourself to some degree you won't find any clients.
It's meaningless to speculate about what contributed most because for all of us its a blend of attributes and achievements.
All of the items on the list are important, and th... See more There are multiple areas that you need to be at least adequate in to succeed. You can be a brilliant translator but if you aren't reliable no one will want to work with you. You can be a reliable translator doing good work but if you don't market yourself to some degree you won't find any clients.
It's meaningless to speculate about what contributed most because for all of us its a blend of attributes and achievements.
All of the items on the list are important, and there are a few more like networking and marketing that are not even mentioned. ▲ Collapse
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Zea_Mays 
Italy
Local time: 10:03
English to German
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| business sense | Jul 28, 2025 |
Wouldn't this include all the provided and omitted options?
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Not just one factor, in my opinion. Specialisation helps but then you also need reliability and client relationship so PM and clients know they don't have to chase you for a job to be finished and well done, also asking pertinent questions if something seems ambiguous. Luck does come into it to a certain extent too.If you reply quickly to emails or job posts, that might be to your advantage too. I'm sure there must be other factors too.
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 10:03
English to French
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Zea_Mays wrote:
Wouldn't this include all the provided and omitted options?
No, business sense and specialization don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 10:03
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Best investment ever | Jul 28, 2025 |
Best investment ever:
2001, Alex Eames, How to earn 80,000 per year as a freelance translator
Put differently:
common-sense reliability and common-sense client relations
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Daryo
Local time: 09:03
Serbian to English
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Zea_Mays wrote:
business sense
Wouldn't this include all the provided and omitted options?
Right on!
Business sense a.k.a. negotiating skills is also an important ingredient - especially in the last mile.
Sadly lacking in too many wordsmiths.
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| Not exactly a success | Jul 28, 2025 |
‘Success’ is stretching it a bit too far, but I’m still holding on to the hope that this will be an important part of my retirement plan for as long as I’m spared. And for that, I have an important client to thank for.
So, other than my professional skills, the existence of that one single client contributed to my ‘success’ (I’m stretching the word to almost breaking point).
I’m sure those translators working for UN can relate.
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IrinaN (X)
United States
Local time: 03:03
English to Russian
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| Followed by: | Jul 30, 2025 |
With AI progression, are language skills necessary to become a translator?
Recent job offer:
Long Context Translation (LCT).
*Professional knowledge is not required for the translation itself, as this is not a professional translation project. However, since it involves paragraph translation, it does require ‘contextual consideration’.
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