Quality control
Linguists selection
The quality control process starts long before we receive a translation project from you, sometimes years ago. Because at the time you are sending us translation request, we should have someone to do the job with the best quality possible, and in time.
We must have pre-selected and trained resources by the time you contact us, because it is hardly possible to find them immediately, even for us.
This Is How The Linguist Selection Works
Process
Before we even allow them to apply for the translation job, they have to pass a simple automated test by choosing A-B-C-D answer to 6 randomly chosen questions. If they reply correctly to 5 out of 6 questions, they may apply for the job. If no, they may try again endlessly. This simple test is passed only by 30% of applicants, so we screen out 70%.
First step
The candidates fill a questionnaire, and if we see the potential of working together, we send them a translation test. The test is passed by 10% of candidates.
Second step
No, that’s not over. For freelance candidates, we are sending “bootcamp” jobs. To put it simply, these are not real jobs, but we pretend they are real, and they have deadlines, instruction, and we pay to translators for them, even though there is no real customer who pays us. We need to make sure that the translator is able to deliver high quality job in a real life situation. And 30% do not pass this stage.
Results
So, if we summarize the math above, only 1 of 50 candidates pass the tests to start working with us. And after that, it takes months until we train them up to our quality standards.
Production Cycle
We are working in accordance with 17100:2015 standard. Apart from many other things, it means that the translation should have 3 stages:
- Translation itself, done by translator
- Editing and proofreading, done by second linguist
- After 2 above stages have been finished, we run automated quality assurance checks that detect potential mistakes, and if they are real, fixing them.
So you may be confident that we have done all quality assurance steps possible.
Post-Production Evaluation And Training
Even after the delivery to customer, the work on project continues. The editor sends the list of corrections to the translator, and puts the score on each translation job. So the translator learns from the corrections done by the editor, and motivated to translate the next project even with better quality.
This process is so important to us that we have developed TQAuditor, a tool that automates whole quality assessment and translators training. It’s the only commercially available translation quality evaluation tool in the world. So we take the quality really seriously.
