Keep Calm and…Build Resilience!

Here at TransTeach we’re all about supporting the next generation of translators, and writers, and bloggers – indeed any young person starting out on their professional journey. Consequently, we’re keen to provide a platform for them to articulate their experiences and the realities of the working world that they currently face.

This month, we’re doing just that, with the first of our posts from younger guest bloggers who have something they want to share with others, supporting TransTeach’s focus on cross-discipline education. 

This post was written by James Hewlett (https://twitter.com/JPHewlett), a recent masters graduate in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Nottingham. Now employed as a linguist for a large translation company based in Warwickshire, his route to securing his current role involved a whole host of time-consuming applications and interviews, a few false starts, some raised hopes and a number of dashed ones. This is what led him to want to write about a very pertinent topic and one which has undoubtedly helped him arrive at where he finds himself today….

Starting out in the translation industry, or starting any new professional endeavour for that matter, is never easy, and our first few steps will always be fraught with difficulty. For all the effort and work you may have put in to get you where you are today, sometimes it feels that Lady Luck is really just not on your side. If only instant success were as easy to achieve as Bradley Cooper in the film Limitless. Alas, the only place that success comes before work is in a dictionary, at least an English one anyway. But what happens if you haven’t achieved those goals within the time period you wanted to achieve them? What happens if your translation career still hasn’t taken off? Should you throw in the towel and just give up?

It’s safe to say that in my limited professional life, I have been faced with a number of challenges, setbacks and rejections, but there are two important life skills that have got me through these challenges and have led me to finally taking my first steps in the translation industry: perseverance and resilience.