The English Language and Literature Program of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, in collaboration with the Association of Language Companies (ALC and ALC Bridge), USA, arranged an international webinar on “How to Start a Career in the Language Industry” on November 13th, 2024, using the Zoom platform. The webinar attracted 50 in-person undergraduate students and over 160 online attendees. The webinar aimed to broaden the understanding of students and other Indonesian stakeholders about the language industry’s scope, job opportunities, and necessary skills and competencies for success. This includes roles such as linguist, translator, interpreter, editor, proofreader, and project manager, among others.
Three U.S. specialists in the language industry presented in the webinar as part of the ALC Bridge committee: Mrs. Kathleen K. Diamond, one of the founding members of the ALC Bridge; Giovanni Donatelli, the Head of Language Group; and Ms. Winnie Heh, the Career Advisor of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California.
The event started at 08:00 AM. Ms. Susi Septaviana Rakhmawati, Ph.D., an assistant professor of the English Language and Literature program at UPI, who served as the moderator, welcomed the opening speech by Prof. Eri Kurniawan, M.A., Ph.D. the chair of the English Language and Literature program at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. She continued introducing the profile of the speakers, and the main event kicked off at 09:00 AM with the presentation from the specialists of ALC Bridge with the following details.
Mrs. Kathleen K. Diamond, the webinar’s first speaker, introduced the history of ALC Bridge and provided a brief overview of the association’s profile, as shown in the presentation screenshot below.
Furthermore, she elucidated the various aspects of the services offered by the association and the companies affiliated with it. She also motivated the students to consider establishing a career in companies under the association.
Most importantly, she emphasized the breadth of career paths available in the language services industry, emphasizing that the industry seeks not only translators, interpreters, teachers, and localizers, but also a variety of other jobs such as lead linguists, localization managers, QA managers, culture trainers, project managers and directors, localization artists and designers, international product managers, audio-visual localization engineers, and engineering production team/managers. In her concluding presentation, she provided resource links for further information, including https://alcbridge.org/page/members.
Mr. Giovanni Donatelli began his presentation by introducing the Language Group, highlighting its recent accolades as one of the top 100 language companies globally, including the 2023 NIMDZI Interpreting Index, the 2024 Slator Challenger, the 2024 Virginia Business Best Place to Work, and its 25 years of excellence. He elaborated further, stating that the language industry is “the largest industry we’ve never heard of,” with an estimated global value of $69.3 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $90.9 billion by 2027. According to the American Translators Association compensation survey, highly specialized translators regularly earn significant salaries. Additionally, interpreters and translators make up 24% of the total occupations projected between 2020-2030, with the majority working as freelancers. He also mentioned that possessing foreign language skills, along with technological skills, is an asset that equips prospective job seekers to succeed in the industry. As such, he provided a link to access what technological skills are in demand based on the “Nimdzi Language Technology Atlas.”
Ms. Winnie Heh, provided a very insightful presentation on the career prospects in language services, stating that the roles and responsibilities are much more diverse than previously known due to the vast development of technology. She provided a list of the top 25 websites that support an average of 58 languages, including Apple, Microsoft, IKEA, Phillips, and numerous others. She underscored the importance of expanding and sharpening the students’ skills to include areas that they are capable of working in, such as illustrated in her model of The Ecosystem of Language Professionals.
She emphasized the significance of students’ exceptional language skills, stating, “Your language needs to be even better if you want to work with machine translation.” She stated that even though machine translation has provided excellent fluency, some linguists may overlook its mistakes; the required human language skills will demand even more advanced levels in the future. Furthermore, she encouraged the students to develop three aspects of competencies to excel in the language service industry, i.e., a) core skills, which include excellent command of the language pair, cultural awareness, and staying up to date; b) technical tools, which include workflow tools, data visualization, and analysis, and staying up to date; c) critical thinking, which includes having a critical eye for machine-automated output and business acumen.
In her concluding statement, she urged the students to recognize the importance of working in teams in global businesses, making their understanding of business operations even more crucial. Also, she suggested that the students should start crafting their unique individual career plans in response to the rapid development of global businesses.
The students and participants of the webinar were very enthusiastic about the presentation and discussion. As the questions and answers session began, many students raised their virtual hands and typed their questions in the chat box. One intriguing question is, “Will the development of AI lead to the replacement of human translators?” Ms. Kathleen responded to this question by stating that the AI era is changing the role of human translators, making certain roles such as nuances, tone, and style irreplaceable for AI technology. In addition, Ms. Kathleen clarified that ALC Bridge is actively developing language standards, such as ASTM and ISO, to enhance language proficiency and establish industry-wide language quality standards. Furthermore, Mr. Giovanni and Ms. Winnie emphasized that AI serves as an auxiliary tool in the industry, primarily translating standard language and interpreting conversations. Human translators or interpreters handle the remaining tasks, taking into account the context and style to guarantee the accuracy of the entire message. Moreover, the panelists reiterated in their presentation that the roles are significantly expanding, including data annotation and data quality analysis, among others.
