Can I add TWB to my LinkedIn profile?

Hi all, can I add working as volunteer translator for TWB on LInkedIn? Many thanks.

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Good afternoon, @Georgiana :sun_with_face: - and welcome to our comunity :partying_face:

The short answer is yes. :slight_smile:

Indeed, you can add all your volunteer work experiences to your LinkedIn account.

You may, however, need to ask for a certificate from organizations you work with as a volunteer to prove that information (or for someone working there to act as a referee for you) if you apply to a job.

Also, you may want to have a look at the Community Recognition Program. I believe you will find it useful.

Happy translating! :tada:

I hope this helps. :slight_smile:

Have a great afternoon, Georgiana. :beach_umbrella:

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Good afternoon @andfraz Thank you for your prompt reply.

That’s great. I know you can get a reference if you needed for a job. I am not a translator yet (need to finish my BA and then the masters in translation). So I signed up to TWB to gain experience.

Thank you so much again.

Have a great afternoon too :slight_smile:

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Hi @Georgiana lovely to hear from you! As @andfraz said you are very welcome to mention your contribution to TWB in your LinkedIn profile :slight_smile: You can also embed your translator badge in your Proz profile following these instructions.

And you are quite right, we do provide reference letters to our translators :star2: However to make it fair for everyone, we ask that you first reach certain word count thresholds. To see the thresholds, have a look at our thread on the General Recognition Program.

If you would like access to more tasks in your language pair, you can consider becoming a Kató Verified Translator! This will increase your chances of finding tasks that match your skills, interests and time schedule :wink: To find out more, please visit this page.

Let us know if you have any questions! :sunny:

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Wow I thought embedding our TWB badge in our Proz page was something we couldnt do anymore ( no idea why I thought that). Guess I know what Im up to on Monday. :grin:

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Hi @JoannaW thank you for this information. I have done 2 tests on the Verified Translator page: English to Romanian and Spanish to English. I believe I submitted these last week.
It is a little difficult to find texts to translate with my language combinations (English, Spanish. French). And i haven’t seen Romanian included in the language list at all.
I will keep an eye on the platform and will claim and translate the tasks that are suitable to me.
Thank you again

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Hi @andfraz, :blossom:

Hope you are doing well!

According to your helpful reply. :blush:

There is a question that came into my mind, so I would like to ask that if we work on so many projects for the same organization, can we ask for a certification from this specific organization to prove our whole work with it, or that is not possible?

Thanks for your amazing support! :cherry_blossom:

Best regards. Lilav.

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Hi @Lilav_Alarashi

Unfortunately, this isn’t something that we offer for the community! Although it is an interesting idea to have a certificate for volunteers who have worked on multiple projects for the same organisation :thinking:

Thank you for your thoughts! We’ll keep them in mind for the future :smiley:

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Hi @charlotte1,

Thanks for your response!

Can I ask you to raise this suggestion in the near future?
Because I think it will be so beneficial for us as volunteer translators and reviewers in so many aspects. :smile:

I appreciate your effort and your support a lot! :cherry_blossom: :sparkles:

Best regards. Lilav.

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Hi @Lilav_Alarashi

I will definitely bring it up with my colleagues :smiley:

Thanks again for your feedback and thoughts!

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Good afternoon, @Lilav_Alarashi :sun_with_face:

Everything’s alright, thanks. I hope you are also well. :smiley:

My apologies I am only replying now. :pray:

Regarding your question, I meant a certificate to prove your experience as a volunteer when you are or were directly involved in an organization’s work.

:bulb: Let me give you an example, which may help you understand the distinction between the organizations you work with as a volunteer and the organizations / people / animals you are supporting through your work.

Let’s imagine that, in a parallel universe, you are volunteering with an organization aiming to rescue and rehome cats and dogs. In this case, although the cats and dogs are benefitting from your volunteer work, it’s easy to see that, from the formal point of view, you are a volunteer with the rescue organization only. Even though you nurtured Rex :dog: and Cookie :cat: back to health, that doesn’t make you a Rex and Cookie volunteer (although you are one of Rex’s and Cookie’s favourite humans in the entire world :earth_africa: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:).

:white_check_mark: Similarly, in TWB, our work ultimately benefits specific organizations, but we are TWB volunteers only - we do not automatically become other organization’s volunteers after translating projects for them. So when it comes to certification, TWB’s reference letters proves you have supported this and that organization through your work. You don’t actually need a certificate from the organization you are ultimately supporting.

However, if you have worked on many, many, many projects for a specific organization, and if you feel it is important for job applications, my best advice is for you to ask TWB to highlight that in your reference letter, and perhaps to highlight one or two special projects you have undertaken to support that NGO. (Also, it would be best for you to suggest full projects, not chunks, as ‘chunk 15’ will sound very vague in a reference letter. :grin: )

As for asking for a certificate from the NGOs we supported as TWB volunteers, the fact is that organization partners aren’t aware of individual efforts on the translation front. TWB relies on a very large community of volunteers, and there are lots of projects in several languages. So it would be hard for NGOs to confirm if we have supported them with their work or not. Plus, again, we are TWB volunteers only. We only become other NGOs’ volunteers too if we contact them and get directly involved in their work.

Having said that, sometimes supported NGOs provide TWB volunteers with certificates of participation or appreciation for our work, as a token of appreciation - but please note that this is something suggested by NGOs, rather than by us or by TWB.

I hope this helps! :slight_smile:

Have a great day, Lilav. :hibiscus:

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Good evening @andfraz, :star:

Thank you for your kindly reply! :sunflower:

The information you provided was both excellent and informative. I learned so much from all that you replied with and feel that it shed a lot of light on the subject for me. :relaxed:

The difference is quite known, but I think I saw once a task with a certificate and there is also a volunteer translator who earned a certificate from one of the NGOs for his work as a translator with TWB, this the cause that I thought that we can as translators and reviewers to ask for a certificate from a specific organization to prove our work.
And I thought your helpful reply above was related to a similar situation, so that is the cause of my question. :innocent:

Again I appreciated the detailed information you replied with, It was comprehensive and gave me much better insight into the subject than I previously had. :blush:

Thank you for the effort that you went into that response. :bouquet: :sparkles:

Your advice is invaluable! :gem:

Best regards. Lilav.

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Hi Joanna and team

Happy New Year!

So sorry to bother you. I have over 19065 recognition points (and 30542 words donated). I sent an email to [recognition@translatorswithoutborders.org in November 2022 asking for the Certification of volunteer activity and the Reference letter but I haven’t received anything.

Can you please let me know what I need to do next?

Kind regards
Cristina

Hey @Georgiana , Thanks for reaching out. That seems quite odd. Could you kindly send us the request again, due to our overwhelming number of requests, it might have slipped through the cracks. Apologies for this :heart:

Yes, you can add your volunteer work as a translator for Translators without Borders (TWB) on LinkedIn. Volunteer work is a valuable addition to your LinkedIn profile and can help demonstrate your skills and commitment to a cause.

To add your volunteer work on LinkedIn, follow these steps:

  • Log in to your LinkedIn account and go to your profile page.
    
  • Click on the "Add profile section" button.
    
  • Select "Volunteer Experience" from the list of options.
    
  • Enter the details of your volunteer work, including the name of the organization (TWB), your role as a volunteer translator, and the duration of your work.
    
  • Provide a brief description of your work and the impact it had on the organization or community you served.
    
  • Click on the "Save" button to add your volunteer experience to your LinkedIn profile.
    

Make sure to highlight your skills and achievements in your volunteer work description, and how it has contributed to your professional development. Many candidates use the Linkedin profile viewer Chrome extension to find easily potential employers or companies with similar values and interests.

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