I recently opened my LinkedIn feed and saw a post from a fellow colleague at European institutions. She shared information about an upcoming translation procurement procedure. The European Commission is launching a new call for tenders for 50 language combinations at the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission.
Why this announcement grabbed my attention? Easy. Because at my previous job, I had to prepare tender documents for TRAD19, the predecessor of this year’s TRAD23.
If you have seen my CV or my LinkedIn profile then you will know that at my previous job, I had to prepare applications for translation tenders launched by various EU institutions. I was successful with the European Parliament and the European Central Bank, but not with the European Commission.
Tender applications are not that hard. If you have done one or three of them, then all the rest will seem similar. Also, now everything is done electronically. You don’t have to print all the forms, CVs, and linguist supporting documents and mail them to Luxembourg. You just need to collect everything listed in a tender’s specification document, scan documents that need to be signed, and assemble a linguist team that is able to pass a technical test. If you like paperwork (and I like paperwork) then this is a job for you.
With TRAD19 I did just that. The paperwork was done right. The thing that made this tender application unsuccessful was the technical test.
With TRAD19 it was as follows. You had to propose a team of two linguists. One is going to translate a document, and the other is going to perform a review. No, these documents are not related. The evaluation is going to start with the review. If a linguist does not get the required amount of points for his/her performed review, then the evaluation team is not going to even look at the translation. Which is understandable and quite common in EU testing. Furthermore, if the review is done right, but the translation is failed, then the case study is not looked at. The case study was not done by a linguist but by the company that is applying. In it you just had to explain how would you deal with a large translation request, at least that was for TRAD19.
I don’t remember how many linguists I proposed and how many language combinations I applied. All my linguists were tested, experienced, and capable of handling EU texts. It was a small army of skilled professionals.
But in the end, not one language combination got through. For some combinations the reviewer failed, but for others the translator. The case study was not even looked at.
Was it stress? Was it the time restraint? Maybe something else? Maybe if the linguists were paid more for the test they would have done a better job. Hard to tell. The European Parliament and the European Central Bank tenders also had technical tests. There the linguists also had to perform under stress and time restraint. Not all of them delivered but some did. So it is possible.
TRAD19 was the one thing that I did not manage to deliver in my previous place of employment. Yes, not due to my fault. Although, if I had proposed different teams maybe the outcome would have been different, who knows?
So when I saw the announcement of TRAD23 I immediately remembered this experience. Yes, it is not a pleasant one, but it still is an experience.
Now it would be interesting to see how it looks at the other end. Namely, I have prepared applications for various tenders, but I have not reviewed any. I wonder how does it look like and what is the internal procedure for it.
Kind regards,
Olaaf
