“How to” series: Interpretation throughout Russia

Our office is located in Western Siberia, Tomsk. The name of our city itself is associated with something remote; nevertheless present-day telecommunications successfully overcome any distance. And we are always eager to carry out interpretation projects (consecutive as well as simultaneous) in any city of Russia. In such projects, we partner with local interpreters and also undertake transfer organization for our clients. Properly functioning today, this system of remote collaboration with our partners has been developed and improved for years. The underlying principle here can be concisely called “the feeling of a partner”; and this relates both to our clients and experts.

All the rest is just according to schoolbooks:

1. Partner selection

The selection of specialists for a project starts with their CV. Of course, from all the candidates we select those whose experience, qualifications and specialization meet the customer’s requirements. The next step is an interview via phone or Skype. We assess professional qualifications such as interpretation skills as well as personal characteristics, including speech tempo, general tone and manners. We also pay attention to emails which vividly describe their author (style, literacy, responsiveness, etc.). You may wonder if such a thorough selection process is reasonable. Absolutely. It gives us confidence that we can rely on our remote partners and entrust them to represent our company in front of our customers. After several years of such practice we can be proud: there were no mistakes in the selection of an appropriate specialist, and real fuckups went us by :) Of course, there were and surely will be nuances in our work because of a human factor. But we always have our finger on the pulse, this is essential part of project management.

2. Providing mutual interest

The key to a successful partnership also lies in the interest of both parties in mutually beneficial results, the so called “win-win” cooperation. Following this principle, we offer our partners interesting projects and attractive terms of cooperation which are hard to refuse.

3. Control, control and again control

And of course, control at every stage of the project is essential: a message upon start and end of the project, timesheet, etc.

A good example of the above is an interpretation project for our British partners, FIFA TV (interpretation of interviews with Russian football stars). After the first film made with Lingvista’s support in Tomsk back in 2010, this client comes back to us again and again for reliable linguistic support in any city of Russia. Our client is sure that they will work with proven, friendly and easy-going interpreters. And our partners, once involved in this interesting project, are ready to participate in it again and again; and this builds a really strong and reliable team.

So, the idea to contact a company from Tomsk for interpretation, for example, in Krasnoyarsk or Kazan – is the right thing to do, isn’t it? :)