Poll: Has mentoring played a role in your career as a language professional? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Has mentoring played a role in your career as a language professional?".
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When I started working as staff translator (at an EU institution) I was mentored by a senior colleague during my first nine months there and several years later I mentored some of my junior colleagues. Mentoring had much more to do with getting acquainted with the ins and outs of working at the UE rather than with the profession itself.
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 17:13
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
At the start of my translation career I worked 5 years as an in-house translator with experienced colleagues, and at some point I become one of the experienced colleagues mentoring other newbies. Best training ever, highly recommend.
| | | | | Mentoring is tremendously helpful! | Mar 23 |
Working for Proz Pro Bono and a US-based, family business time ago, I received many pieces of advice related to my writing and content creation. I discovered that these 2 things are really enjoyable and are my passions now. I am not working with any of them nowadays, but my passion is within me and still growing. Mentoring is quite good because of that. You can learn from the experience and perspective of others about the world, our industry, career path and interests. I truly recommend it![]() ... See more Working for Proz Pro Bono and a US-based, family business time ago, I received many pieces of advice related to my writing and content creation. I discovered that these 2 things are really enjoyable and are my passions now. I am not working with any of them nowadays, but my passion is within me and still growing. Mentoring is quite good because of that. You can learn from the experience and perspective of others about the world, our industry, career path and interests. I truly recommend it ▲ Collapse
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Not really. All I ever had was excessively critical proofreading, which my "superiors" might have considdered mentoring but really wasn't.
| | | | | I never intended becoming a language pro | Apr 12 |
Way back then, mid-80s, as a Chemistry student who needed to pay his rent, I saw an ad from a market research company looking for translations into Eng of customer satisfaction surveys - just colloquial stuff. I had zero translation experience and just 2-3 years of German but gave it a shot. I had a mentor/proofreader there and I learnt a lot from her. Later, while still studying Chemistry, I was approached by a translation office and worked there for a bit, also with 2-3 mentors. I learnt a lot... See more Way back then, mid-80s, as a Chemistry student who needed to pay his rent, I saw an ad from a market research company looking for translations into Eng of customer satisfaction surveys - just colloquial stuff. I had zero translation experience and just 2-3 years of German but gave it a shot. I had a mentor/proofreader there and I learnt a lot from her. Later, while still studying Chemistry, I was approached by a translation office and worked there for a bit, also with 2-3 mentors. I learnt a lot from them too.
I later joined that company and became a mentor for others, a few of whom later thanked me muchly.
So yes, mentoring has played a role in my case. In both directions.
@Gerard: "excessively critical proofreading" can help too ▲ Collapse
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Cilian O'Tuama wrote:
Way back then, mid-80s, as a Chemistry student who needed to pay his rent, I saw an ad from a market research company looking for translations into Eng of customer satisfaction surveys - just colloquial stuff. I had zero translation experience and just 2-3 years of German but gave it a shot. I had a mentor/proofreader there and I learnt a lot from her. Later, while still studying Chemistry, I was approached by a translation office and worked there for a bit, also with 2-3 mentors. I learnt a lot from them too.
I later joined that company and became a mentor for others, a few of whom later thanked me muchly.
So yes, mentoring has played a role in my case. In both directions.
@Gerard: "excessively critical proofreading" can help too
"Excessive" anything is rarely good. In my first in-house job as a translator, my work was proofread by a colleague who had about two years more experience than I did but was considered by our boss to already be senior. The proofreading was always critical and praise was never forthcoming. I don't think this was because my work was that bad because I had to complete test translations to get the job in the first place so if my work was that awful it would been apparent at that stage. Some of my translations she used then send to our boss complete with mostly negative remarks about my work. Not very conducive to a happy working environment!
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