How to prepare for “validation”

So, you’ve published your profile and now you’ve been told that Zingword will “manually validate” your profile and that you should have your profile in “tip-top shape.” In this article we’ll talk about what manual validation is and how you can prepare.

👉🏾 To get ideas for your profile, checkout Great translator profiles to use as inspiration.

👉 To copy some of these markdown templates, head on over to Markdown templates.

What is validation?

Validation is where someone at Zingword looks at your profile and tries to determine your level of professionalism.

We have worked for many years to build this platform for translators, and translators rightly have high expectations of us.

We also have high expectations of you. Your Zingword profile is capable of putting your very best foot forward — You can include links to clients or projects, persuasive headings and copywriting, bullets, and beautifully structured content.

Don’t be afraid though — it just comes comes down to effort. If you make a sincere effort to put your best foot forward, you’ll pass validation with flying colours.

We are taking great steps, and spending a great deal of money, to market your services to potential customers. In fact, it’s our life’s work to market your services. What we want is that every translator tries their best to represent themselves for these clients. This is going to help you sell, and it’s going to help us sell you.

How validation works

We give you a validation date, so you have time to prepare your profile. This date is not set yet, but it will be plenty of time.

Then we do it. The results are:

• Promotion to more clients
• Promotion to fewer clients
• Rejection of your application

For now, it’s a one-time thing. You can ask for an extension if you need one by using the help chat widget, but at present, there is no second validation. We can’t wait to market your services to clients.

What we look for

Overall categories

• Effort. Zingword is not ProZ, at all — We want to actively market your services to clients, and to do that you have to look marvelous. Luckily, we have given you the tools to look marvelous. We want to see formatting, structured content, bullets, clients, content types you translate, links projects or useful information, persuasion and messaging… We want you at your very best, and effort is the easiest way to spot someone who really cares about their profession.
• Professional impression. Overall impression…
• Persuasion & messaging. Can this translator go outside the generic description and capture what makes them special.

Red flags

• Poor effort. The best way to judge this yourself is did you try your best to write persuasive, informative content about yourself? If you didn’t try very hard, this won’t get you very far.
• Mismatched fields. Information in fields that doesn’t belong there, like for example sharing your LinkedIn account in the Subject Matter fields when we already have a built-in LinkedIn account. Or using the Highlights field to write about something totally unrelated to the question there.
• Spelling & Grammar. We’re international English right now (localizing soon hopefully) so it doesn’t have to be perfect. But it can’t be terrible either.

Specific criteria

• Avatar. No company logos. Drawings on a case-by-case basis.
• Subtitle. Do you.
• Subject matter highlights. Probably the most expressive part of your profile. Use them wisely!
• Highlights. Did you make an effort here?
• About Me. We want to see solid, structured content. Correct paragraph spacing. Persuasion, messaging. Who you are and what you stand for as a translator.
• CPD. This is automatically tallied. ;-)
• Markdown usage (About Me, Subject Matters, Highlights). You have the chance to make really cool content. Let’s see it.
• Usage of links. Links to projects, portfolio items, etc., are all encouraged here.
• We verify your identity with the selfie method on the dashboard.
• References. They are hard to get, but we want to see one. It’s crucial for the customers who will see your profile… testimonials are key! You may have them on LinkedIn and we get that. But does LinkedIn help customers generate instant quotes or market your services via API, on Google, and directly to clients? Nope! Let’s get one!

What can I do to make a “cool” profile?

First and foremost…

👉🏾 To get ideas for your profile, checkout Great translator profiles to use as inspiration.

1. Try to get at least one reference. References not only help with validation, they also influence the algorithms that match you with potential clients.
2. LinkedIn profiles or other social profiles where the online translation community is active are a plus! Taking time to link your online, professional activities together can help us (and others!) to see how active and passionate you are.
3. Watch for misspellings. Most of our translators are foreign speakers of English, but we do check to make sure that the English on the profiles is mostly good.
4. Use Markdown in your About Me area. Markdown lets you make headings, bullet points, and links, so you can really get expressive about your work.
5. Add continued professional development. This is an awesome utility because it helps you highlight how hard you work to stay up-to-date and keep learning, but it’s also super valuable for customers and our validation team, because it helps us to see how you support your professional growth!
6. Do not duplicate existing fields in the About Me area. For example, Zingword collects your prices to help you make instant quote estimates. Do not write more prices or the same prices into the About Me field.
7. Try to get your profile complete % up near 100%. More info is more better, not just for us but also for your potential clients!
8. Don’t put animals in your avatar. Clients just want to know that you’re a real and professional person. There is no “one way” to make an avatar, but we recommend starting with “taking a good picture of yourself” and “not being too far away from the camera.” We love cats, but cats in an avatar are a minus!
9. Don’t put logos in your avatar. That’s not allowed!

This design may give you some idea of what you can do with structured content.