10 Tips to those applying for translation jobs

Running a small translation office I am bombarded with requests from would be translators looking for work. It is perhaps a sad reflection of the times that I get ten times as many such requests as I have jobs coming in, and often these people find me  through advertising channels which I end up having  to pay for (e.g. Google AdWords, linkedIn etc.).

So here i have compiled a list of tips for those applying for work based on my experience looking at such prospective applications.

1: Make sure the application is in good English. You are a translator offering language services, and even if  English is not your mother tongue, it tends to leave a bad impression if it has errors strewn all over it. Also take care of punctuation and presentation, part of your work involves presenting a document in an acceptable format and if you get this wrong.....well...

2. Don’t make overhyped and overambitious claims. Nobody is perfect, I certainly am not, and when I looked at one translator who claimed to offer “perfection” it was hilarious to see how many errors he made in his pitch letter. Bidirectional translators do exist but my experience is that people are best at translating into their mother tongue. So even if  you are bidirectional, I would play this down at first. And don’t try to claim you can take any amount of work on at any notice, this is also completely unrealistic and leads to mistrust from the off.       

3: Don’t forget to mention your language combination, preferably in the subject of the email. . This is THE most important information when filing applications, and you would be amazed at how invisible this information is in many translator’s applications.   

4: Differentiate yourself. Don’t try and say you do everything under the sun at a low price in the hope of catching as much work as possible. I want to be safe with someone who I hire and I would rather have someone who knows a lot about comparatively little. Once you establish a working relationship you might be asked to go beyond those limits and do other work, but offer yourself as a specialist first.

5: Don’t send paper CVs in. It takes time (and therefore money) to file this information, and if a company has a mask on a website for entering your details into a database, use it. You will be more respected for it too. If you have to send an electronic  CV in, make sure its easy to copy and paste information from it. Don’t send references or certificates unless asked.  

6: Be straight to the point. There are a lot of people looking for work. The information people need is what is your language combination? what is your specialty? What is your education and experience background? What translation tools do you use? And How much do you cost? Remember, no claims of unerring reliability or total perfection which merely distract and annoy whoever is trying to assess your application.

7: Tell the office how you heard of them. This is very well respected because it provides information about what marketing measures used by the translation company are successful. If you got to the company’s website by clicking on a Google ad, you already cost that company advertising costs, so a little feedback in the way of information helps to soothe those pains. As I said, ten times as many people click on those ads looking for work rather than looking for a service, so the costs do mount up.

8: Don’t expect an immediate response. Many applications are filed away for a rainy day...i.e. when someone looks for work to be done in a certain language combination. Sometimes people will only get back to you after years.   

9: Try to remember that when you are a freelancer, the company you apply to will see you as a service provider, even if you do not see yourself that way. You have to pitch yourself to people that way. You won’t be seeing people 8 hours a day, so a CV need not include information about clubs, organisations and activities. Stick to the information that is important. You are expected to be reliable, punctual  and offer material of sufficient quality (95-98% and not 100% perfection), so there really is no point even mentioning whether you have any of these qualities.

Dr. Julian P. Keogh
http://www.pharmacad-services.eu
info@pharmacad-services.eu

                 

Script for detecting malicious injected script in joomla databases

Many malicious individuals exploit loopholes in forms on your website to try to gain  control of your website, using it as a zombie to send out spam mails, or for other malevolant purposes.

Such scripts are often stored and hidden deep in your Joomla database, but the problem is finding them, which can take a great deal of time. Once you have found them, you can gain valuable information about any vulnerabilities you might have on your website and correct your website accordingly.

The problem is, there dont seem to be that many (free) facilities out there for scanning your website database, so I thought i'd write a very simple script to do just this. Please note, you also need to have the Jumi application installed for it to work properly (though with some modifications you might be able to run it as a standalone PHP script).

Instructions are,

1. Open up the Jumi component
2. Create new application
3. Copy code below into the code window  
4. Save application 
5. Add the application to one of your menus (assigning it as only executable by admin if necessary) 
6. Run the application from the front end by clicking on the menu point

 The program is extremely basic, and will only provide the record number in the database, providing that the first column of the table being scanned contains a unique numeric identifier for the record (most, but not all do).

Depending on interest, I may try to improve it, perhaps with hyperlinks from the record numbers to display a javascript popup containing the questionable code, but for now, this shall do.  

In any case, it should help you detect if you have any hidden problems on your website. You can also use it to run general string searches on your webiste, if for example, you need to globally change any phone numbers etc.

Here is the code

<?php

/* A short script for detecting site injections, or generally searching for specific strings, in your entire database. If you have Jumi for Joomla, simply create a new Jumi application from the Jumi Component, paste this code into the code window, save it, and assign this application to a menu so you can run it from the front end of your site.
this is a very basic script slapped up in a couple of hours, and is ony intended to help those who may be looking fior problems in their database. I make no guarantees, and users use it at their own risk.     
Copyright 2014 Dr. Julian P. Keogh  www.dr-julian-keogh.de
*/

//The search form

echo '
<H3>Injected code detector:</H3>
<form name="variable" action="" method="post">
Use this form to sniff out nasty script injections in your joomla database. Search for terms such as php, script or eval which are often used by miscreants to create general havoc on your website. 
<p>
This script searches each field of each table for the string, and then returns the first column value if a match is found (usually, but not always the record number in your database).   
<p>
Enter the string to search for below:
<br>
<input type="text" name="varname" SIZE="40" MAXLENGTH="40" value=""><br>
<input type="submit" NAME="findstring" VALUE="Search for string">
</form>
';

//Once the form is submitted, the page reloads executing the script below
if(isset($_POST["findstring"])) {

$varname = $_POST["varname"];

echo "Results<br>";
$db2    = &JFactory::getDBO();
$tables = $db2->getTableList();

//script below scans each table for columns
foreach($tables as $table)
    {
      $db3    = &JFactory::getDBO();

      $showcolumns = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM ".$table."";

      $db3->setQuery($showcolumns);
      $db3->query();
      $columns = $db3->loadAssocList();

//script below scans each column row for dodgy text
     
      foreach($columns as $column)
            {
              if (is_array($column)) {
              foreach ($column as $field)
              {
 
            
              $db4    = &JFactory::getDBO();
              $showrows = "SELECT * FROM ".$table." WHERE `".$field."` LIKE '%".$varname."%'";
              $db4->setQuery($showrows);
              $db4->query();
              $rownum = $db4->getNumRows();
              $rows = $db4->loadRowList();
 
 //if no rows are repoerted containing string, loop breaks, otherwise instances are printed out
              if ($rownum==0) {break 1;}
              else {echo $table." ".$field."<br><font-color='red'>"; foreach ($rows as $row){echo $row[0]." ";}}              
              echo "<p><font-color='black'>";
             
              break 1;}

              }


            }

    }

}
?>