Which Competences does the Market Demand?

An Analysis of Job Advertisements for Translators and Interpreters

Borislava Eraković

Faculty of Philosophy, Novi Sad

Advertisements Jan.2009-Dec.2011.Infostud.com, Poslovi.rs,Bestjobs.com/CeeVee

2009 2010 20110

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

26

46

71

30

56

132

No. of employersNo. of ads

Location of the employer / where the professional translation activity is carried out

Belgrade 41%

Novi Sad 23%

Work from home 13%

Another country 9%

Niš 4,8%

Kragujevac 2,7%

Subotica 2,7%

Bačka Palanka, Brus, Ćačak, Kraljevo, Kruševac, Novi Bečej, Pančevo, Senta, Smederevska Palanka, Smederevo, Svilajnac, Temerin 0,69%

finansije

građevina

pravo

elektrotehnika

marketing

zdravstvo

mašinstvo

mediji

turizam

automobilska ind.

proizvodnja nameštaja

obrazovanje

prehrambena ind.

rudarstvo

metalurgija

tekstilna ind.

bela tehnika

muzika

Domains

Languages

EnglishGermanRussian

ItalianFrench

SpanishChinese

DutchPortuguese

TurkishArabian

NorwegianDanishCzech

FinnishUkrainian

BelorussianJapanese

HebrewGreekLatin

Pakistani

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Demand Direction for German, Russian, Italian, French and Spanish

2009 2010 20110

5

10

15

20

25

German

Russian

Italian

French

Spanish

Languages of the Region

Slovenian

Albanian

Bulgarian

Romanian

Hungarian

Macedonian

Slovak

Czech

Romany

Rusyn

Greek

0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%

C language/2nd foreign language?

English 30

Italian 17

German 16

Russian 11

French 10

Spanish 5

Slovenian 2

Ukraine 1

Alabanian 1

Hungarian 1

Arabian 2

2009 2010 20110

10

20

30

40

Type of assignment

% of employers

translation 69 business letter, contract, invoice, business documentation, report, web site,

catalogue, advertisement/commercial, instruction, regulation, specialized text...

interpreting 42 writing 11 proofreading 9 revising 6 project coordination 3,2 audiovisual translation 2,4 localisation 1,6 court translation

& interpreting 1,6 not specified 16

Which Characteristics?

organised and efficientprecise, attentive to detailhard-workingambitious and willing to learncreative

communicative

team worker

tactical

not prone to criticism

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Which Tools?

MS OfficeInternetCAT Tools (Trados i Wordfast)DTP software (Photoshop, Dreamweaver,

InDesign)Subtitling software

Thank you for your attention.