Article Must-dos for an impactful CV

Your CV is something you have to keep coming back to time and again throughout your career, from the moment you first take the leap and become a freelance translator.

That’s because your business and your skills are never static, and they’ll grow and evolve as you do.

Whether this is the first time you’re creating a freelance translation CV or you’ve been doing this for a long time and want to give your existing one a facelift, keep reading for our tips on what to include and how to go about creating something you can be genuinely proud to share with potential clients.

Beyond your CV

As you might have noticed (we’ve used the word enough), we’re here to talk about CVs. But as a side note, we just wanted to mention that when it comes to marketing yourself as a freelance translator, your CV might well end up gathering just a little bit of dust.

When you’re starting out, you’ll probably be targeting translation agencies, who will indeed request your CV. But as time goes on and you get work through referrals and start collaborating with direct clients, you’ll find your CV gets requested less and less.

In fact, you might well get to the stage where you suddenly get surprised by a request for your CV and realise it hasn’t been needed in months and could do with a few tweaks.

At this stage, the things that will really count will be your website, your social media presence and profiles, your reputation and the way you come across to your colleagues and clients.

This is just something to bear in mind, since if agencies aren’t your focus any more, then it’s probably more worthwhile to spend time polishing your LinkedIn profile than it is spending hours agonising over the precise layout of a fancy new CV.

Is one CV enough?

All that being said, you definitely need a CV, and you might well need more than one.

Lots of you wonderful linguists are multitalented and marvellous, with all kinds of strings to your diversified bows. If that’s the case, you might consider creating two or more CVs, each tailored to a specific hat you wear or service you offer.

Say, for example, that you work as a translator, but also a copywriter AND a freelance project manager. Or have two very specific and unrelated specialisms within translation like marketing transcreation and medical translation.

In both those cases, multiple CVs make an awful lot of sense, as your medical clients won’t be interested in your marketing projects, and vice versa, and your translation project management clients don’t need to know the details of your copywriting jobs.

One page is plenty

However many CVs you’ve decided you need, we’re firm believers that for freelancers one page is always enough.

People are short on time and will only spare your CV a few seconds (if you’re lucky!), so all the key information needs to be summarised in a succinct, accessible, easy-to-scan way.

Key elements to include on your CV(s)

Now we’ve talked about the general stuff, here are our specific tips for things every freelance translation CV should include.

Language pairs

Always make sure your language pairs are displayed prominently and that it’s very clear which languages you work with, even to people who aren’t familiar with the translation industry.

After all, the very first and most basic thing a potential client needs to know is if your language skills match the project in question.

Specialisms

If you specialise in specific subject matter, make sure that’s very clear at a glance too.

As we mentioned above, you might decide you need a different CV for each specialism, but you can also just include your niches at the top of your CV so your clients immediately know that you’ve got the specialised knowledge necessary to provide the best results.

Software

A list of the software and CAT tools you use, have experience with or have invested in to provide your clients with the best service is also an important thing to include in a prominent position, as licences for a certain software are sometimes needed for certain jobs.

Education and certifications

Got letters after your name? Go on, add them in, even if just for the sake of personal pride!

When it comes to the education section of your CV, keep it as brief as possible.

And make sure you don’t leave out any other relevant qualifications you’ve gained, like in-depth courses you’ve taken to start offering a new skill.

Professional memberships

We always find the best way to highlight your memberships of any professional associations is to use those handy badges they provide, as it’s much more visually accessible.

Contact details

This one isn’t exactly rocket science, as interested clients need to be able to reach you. But think carefully about which details you include rather than just adding every possible method of contact for the sake of it.

Do you hate speaking on the phone and tend to ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers? Don’t include your phone number.

Never check Skype? Don’t include your ID.

Working hours and time zone

This one is entirely optional, but you might want to include your working hours to help manage client expectations from the very beginning.

For example, if you’ve got a strict no weekend or evening work policy (more power to you!) then this will help to make that clear.

On the other hand, if your USP is that you’re always available (which we don’t recommend, as you need your rest!) then that should be clear from your CV too.

Including your time zone can also be a good filter, as availability at certain times of day might be important for some projects or clients.

Examples of projects

A list of the main projects you’ve worked on recently, or your career highlights, is central to any freelance CV.

You probably won’t have space to include everything, so make sure you pick and choose the most relevant projects and examples of kinds of work you excel at and would like to do more of.

Link to portfolio/LI profile

As we’ve mentioned, one page doesn’t allow for much, but a great way to get around that is to put together a portfolio, whether part of your website or standalone, that you can link to from your CV.

A portfolio is an opportunity for you to really go to town, sharing details of projects you’ve worked on and clients you’ve worked with (NDAs permitting). Doing it this way, as opposed to a lengthy resume, means that clients who don’t want the details don’t have to wade through them, but clients who are interested in your previous projects can easily access all the information they’re looking for.

If you’ve got a healthy LinkedIn presence then a prominent link to your profile is another great thing to include, especially if you post regularly and have all the details of your education and previous experience on there. Bonus points if you’ve got lots of glowing recommendations from them to read.

Testimonial

You might not be able to squeeze this one into your one-page CV, but if you’ve got a really compelling, succinct testimonial from a relevant client, it’s not a bad idea to include it, perhaps at the top or bottom of the page.

If you have a testimonials page on your website, you could also include a link so anyone interested can peruse all the other nice things people have said about working with you.

Elements expected by your potential clients

You don’t need us to tell you about the importance of localisation, but forgive us for including a quick reminder that there might be certain elements expected by your clients from a certain culture or country.

For example, in some cultures it’s common practice to include a photograph on your CV, and in some it’s seen as a little strange.

If you’re targeting different markets with different expectations, creating different versions of your CV to reflect them will be very much worth your while.

Your branding

Last, but by no means least, the look of your CV is nearly as important as its contents.

If you’ve got brand colours or a logo (if you don’t, you might want to consider changing that!), then they need to be reflected on your CV.

You could also use the same fonts that appear on your website, if you’ve got one, to make the whole experience feel professional and cohesive, which goes a long way to making a potential client feel like they can trust you.

A great CV can help you reel in the perfect clients.

But how do you make sure you hold onto them? Well, LSP.expert is here to make it easy to provide the best possible service and keep them coming back for more.

Give our 30-day free trial a go to see what a difference it could make to your workflow for yourself.