Translating jobs

[Dr Jekyll]

An acquaintance wants to get a job (in the UK) using his language abilities. His native language is Italian and he speaks fluent but accented English.

He's looking for jobs in the UK but reckons his interview performance is letting him down. Would he be better off looking for such jobs in Italy? If I wanted to employ a translator I'd prefer someone whose native language was the 'other' one, but what do employers generally prefer?

[Countdown]

Tbh I don't think "main language" matters. When I used to work for MoJ the main thing we looked at was membership of NRPSI and also that they had lots of PII (we didn't want them to confuse "Guilty" with "Not Guilty").

I think Crapita have got the public sector contracts sewn up.

[davepoth]

Plenty of jobs want language ability - even customer care roles usually ask for it these days.

I think his best bet would be to try and find companies that would want an Italian speaker - Italian companies with English subsidiaries and vice versa.

[thebigm]

I think you friend would be very lucky to get a job as an in-house translator translating from English to Italian. Most of the in-house translator jobs tend to be from French or German to English or vice-versa in this country. However, he may be able to pick up some temporary contracts for computer games companies or suchlike. He should check some of the big job websites such as Reed, Fish, and sign up for specific language job agencies, as he may be able to find jobs in other industries that require Italian language skills. In in all, he probably has more hope of picking up a job with his Italian language skills in this country, but chances of a translation job with Italian alone are very slim.
I work as a translator, so feel free to PM me if you have any more questions

[thebigm]

You should also bear in mind this distinction:

Translator = is someone who translates written content from a foreign language into their "mother tongue" only

Interpreter = someone who translates the spoken word in a conversation, interview, etc. They will "translate" both ways. I.e. from and into their native language.

Hope this helps!