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You can now add your professional objectives at ProZ.com
Thread poster: Jared Tabor
Jared Tabor
Jared Tabor
Local time: 17:29
SITE STAFF
May 16, 2019

Dear members,

You can now add your professional business objectives at ProZ.com. These are designed to help ProZ.com deliver an experience that is more customized to your needs, but they may also serve, in some cases, as facilitators for networking. The objectives section is included as an "encouraged" field in your profile.



In your profile updater, under Professional history, you will see this new section:





  1. You can indicate generally where you feel you are in your career.
  2. You can select objectives which are in line with what you seek to get out of ProZ.com.
  3. You can indicate, on a 1 - 5 scale, how well you feel you are meeting those objectives through ProZ.com.
  4. You can choose to display your objectives publicly in your profile.
  5. You can also opt out of completing your objectives.


Career position and ratings will be visible only to you, but you have the choice to show your selected objectives in your ProZ.com profile if you wish.

Career position, objectives, and ratings can be added, removed, or adjusted whenever you want.

You can add your objectives here: https://www.proz.com/settings/history



Thank you to the members of the Certified PRO Network who gave their time and input on this feature earlier this year.

Jared


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Veteran? May 16, 2019

Jared Tabor wrote:
You can now add your professional business objectives at ProZ.com.


Does "veteran" mean "very experienced" or "retired"?


Hedwig Spitzer (X)
 
Jared Tabor
Jared Tabor
Local time: 17:29
SITE STAFF
TOPIC STARTER
A grizzled veteran of the translation industry? May 16, 2019

Hi Samuel,

Samuel Murray wrote:

Jared Tabor wrote:
You can now add your professional business objectives at ProZ.com.


Does "veteran" mean "very experienced" or "retired"?


I would say "veteran", especially in this context, is someone who has had extensive experience in a given field. Is there another single word you think might be less confusing (to avoid using "very experienced" if possible)?

Jared


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:29
Member
English to Italian
Expert May 16, 2019

Jared Tabor wrote:

Hi Samuel,

Samuel Murray wrote:

Jared Tabor wrote:
You can now add your professional business objectives at ProZ.com.


Does "veteran" mean "very experienced" or "retired"?


I would say "veteran", especially in this context, is someone who has had extensive experience in a given field. Is there another single word you think might be less confusing (to avoid using "very experienced" if possible)?


"Someone who has had extensive experience in a given field" would be an "expert" (in that specific field)... but, considering the question and the "experience line" with the various steps, that looks to me to suggest more a direct relationship with years of experience rather than specialization "in a given field". In the end, even someone with 3 or 4 years of experience might have "extensive experience in a given field" and yet not be considered a veteran, seasoned, senior, [insert term here] translator...

Maybe add a tooltip explaining what you mean exactly with each of those labels (also in terms of years of experience/words translated/etc.)?


Ivana Kahle
Hedwig Spitzer (X)
MollyRose
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TargamaT team
Andy Watkinson
 
Ivana Kahle
Ivana Kahle  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:29
Member (2007)
German to Croatian
+ ...
End/direct clients directory May 16, 2019

That's nice, but...
what about the end/direct clients directory?
I already asked this question, the response was vague.
IMHO end/direct clients should not be listed together with translation companies because they are (usually) NOT translation companies.
What do other members of the community think?
Would that make sense?
Looking forward to your responses!


Andy Watkinson
 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 16:29
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
@Jared - a suggestion May 17, 2019

I think "seasoned professional" is possibly what you are looking for, instead of "veteran".

Roy Williams
David Lin
P.L.F. Persio
Andy Watkinson
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Jared May 17, 2019

Jared Tabor wrote:
I would say "veteran", especially in this context, is someone who has had extensive experience in a given field. Is there another single word you think might be less confusing (to avoid using "very experienced" if possible)?


I have thought of a number of alternatives, but all of them would have the effect of changing the way I then interpret the meaning of "experienced". The main thing is that users should instinctively know that the level after "experienced" is "much more experienced" and not "no longer active" (I know the word "veteran" mostly from war, in which veterans are all soldiers who no longer work as soldiers, regardless of whether they were effective solders or ineffective soldiers when they were in the war).

I suggest "highly experienced". I don't think "expert" is a good option, because it dilutes the meaning of "experienced". Someone who is "experienced" (on your scale, as I understand it) is an expert.

Someone suggested a tooltip, but a tooltip is only effective if the user expects a tooltip and specifically hovers his mouse to see the tooltip.


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:29
Member
English to Italian
"Tooltip" May 17, 2019

Samuel Murray wrote:

I suggest "highly experienced". I don't think "expert" is a good option, because it dilutes the meaning of "experienced". Someone who is "experienced" (on your scale, as I understand it) is an expert.

Someone suggested a tooltip, but a tooltip is only effective if the user expects a tooltip and specifically hovers his mouse to see the tooltip.


I know with this flurry of posts it must be very difficult to keep track of who wrote what, but that someone was me

And what I wrote is that I don't think "expert" would be appropriate either, even though it's the word that IMO better reflects the definition Jared gave.

As for the "tooltip", all I wanted to convey is the idea that those "labels" have to be contextualized and be objective in some way or form, otherwise, in addition to people misrepresenting their own skills and knowledge on purpose, there will also be other who do so inadvertently, simply because it's not clear what each of those labels actually means. And by the way, about the technical point you were making, you have to hover the mouse cursor over one of those labels in order to select it, so I think a tooltip would be hard to miss anyway...

But if not a tooltip, then a legend, caption, or whatever that actually explains it. Anything would be better than just leaving it entirely to each single user's interpretation.

E.g. "Semi-experienced - 2 years of professional full-time experience and 500,000 translated words"
"Experienced - 4 years of professional full-time experience and 1,000,000 translated words"

The point is to make it objective.


That said, I'm not entirely sure how all of this is supposed to be useful or have a direct impact on our UX, but I do hope proz will be monitoring this input in order to measurably improve... "stuff".


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Mirko May 17, 2019

Mirko Mainardi wrote:
Samuel Murray wrote:
Someone suggested...

I know with this flurry of posts it must be very difficult to keep track of who wrote what, but that someone was me.


I meant no offence by not quoting your or omitting your name, Mirko. I wanted my post to focus more on what you had said as opposed to who said it. I see now how my omitting your name may have come across as impolite.

Anything would be better than just leaving it entirely to each single user's interpretation. ... The point is to make it objective.


Of course, if it needs to be objective, then it should be made objective (and tooltips are a great way of doing that). However, in this case, neither one's selection on the experience scale nor one's star ratings will appear on the public profile page. Only staff will ever see this information, and they will use it only in aggregate form to improve their services.

I commented in my previous post about the distinction between "expert" and "experienced", but in reality it doesn't matter that much. In fact, even presenting this as a "scale" may be inaccurate: ProZ.com wants to know roughly how many of its users are roughly what type of user.

In my opinion, this new feature is a bit of an oddity in that it tries to kill two birds with one stone. The selected options may be called "professional objectives" on the profile page, but ProZ.com will use it to determine what the site is being used for and how successful it is at that (which has nothing to do with "professional objectives").

[Edited at 2019-05-17 08:24 GMT]


 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:29
German to English
"Veteran" seems fine to me. May 17, 2019

I thought it might be an Americanism, but "a person who has had long experience in a particular field" is the first definition provided by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and a site search of the Guardian for "veteran actor" produces around 100 hits that seem to generally be used in the appropriate sense (= not in the sense of a military veteran who is also an actor). "Veteran translator" even turns up once. At any rate, I immediately and unambiguously understood the categories in the int... See more
I thought it might be an Americanism, but "a person who has had long experience in a particular field" is the first definition provided by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and a site search of the Guardian for "veteran actor" produces around 100 hits that seem to generally be used in the appropriate sense (= not in the sense of a military veteran who is also an actor). "Veteran translator" even turns up once. At any rate, I immediately and unambiguously understood the categories in the intended sense.

If the terms are confusing to a lot of people and a better alternative is found, that's great. Otherwise you have one vote from me that it is fine as is. "Seasoned professional" would be fine with me, too, although adding "professional" to only one of the categories may cause a fuss.

And because it's not shown to visitors, it seems like a subjective self-description is exactly the kind of information you're looking for.
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Ivana Kahle
Kevin Fulton
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Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:29
Member
English to Italian
Not public? May 17, 2019

Samuel Murray wrote:

I meant no offence by not quoting your or omitting your name, Mirko. I wanted my post to focus more on what you had said as opposed to who said it. I see now how my omitting your name may have come across as impolite.


None taken Samuel, I was just kidding


However, in this case, neither one's selection on the experience scale nor one's star ratings will appear on the public profile page. Only staff will ever see this information, and they will use it only in aggregate form to improve their services.


You sure? I think I saw an option to make it public?

ProZ.com wants to know roughly how many of its users are roughly what type of user.

In my opinion, this new feature is a bit of an oddity in that it tries to kill two birds with one stone. The selected options may be called "professional objectives" on the profile page, but ProZ.com will use it to determine what the site is being used for and how successful it is at that (which has nothing to do with "professional objectives").


And also the site's demographic, relative to the industry, I guess... although I'm not entirely sure how such data will be used and what impact it could have on what, as I previously wrote.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Try it and see May 17, 2019

Mirko Mainardi wrote:
Samuel Murray wrote:
However, in this case, neither one's selection on the experience scale nor one's star ratings will appear on the public profile page. Only staff will ever see this information, and they will use it only in aggregate form to improve their services.

You sure? I think I saw an option to make it public?


You mean the "Show my objectives in my profile" check box? Try it. (-:

What you see:

what you see

What the public sees:

what the public sees

I have no objection telling ProZ.com in what ways I use the site and to what degree my use of the site has been a success, but since those things are not what I would want to have listed on my profile page as "professional objectives", I didn't check the box.


 
Katalin Szilárd
Katalin Szilárd  Identity Verified
Hungary
Local time: 21:29
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Quantity and quality May 17, 2019

I think some questions do not lead to the most important answers: like
"Meet new translation company clients or end clients"
and then "How well are you succeeding at this objective at ProZ.com?"

Proz.com enables its members to meet extremely many outsourcers (the possibility is there), so it's not just the quantity we are interested in but the quality of these translation agencies/end clients. Because in the last couple of months I received more jobs that were sent to T
... See more
I think some questions do not lead to the most important answers: like
"Meet new translation company clients or end clients"
and then "How well are you succeeding at this objective at ProZ.com?"

Proz.com enables its members to meet extremely many outsourcers (the possibility is there), so it's not just the quantity we are interested in but the quality of these translation agencies/end clients. Because in the last couple of months I received more jobs that were sent to Trash. And "meeting" a client does not mean that it will be a fruitful collaboration (some agencies want only CVs or an hourly job and then hasta la vista baby).

So I'm interested in using ProZ.com in order to:
to meet quality (that meet my terms) translation agencies/end clients, who pay and respect their translators, who pay on time (within 30 days), who pay above standard rates since I'm not starting out nor semi-experienced experienced any more.

[Edited at 2019-05-17 11:41 GMT]

Edited: adding "any more"

[Edited at 2019-05-17 14:11 GMT]
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