Based on the insights which are provided by the European Language Industry Survey (https://elis-survey.org) each year, we at Eurotradus can confirm that we have been on the right track for many years investing time in the young talents at higher education institutions, writes Dainius Sabaliauskas. Managing Director of EUATC Network member EUROTRADUS, UAB based in Lithuania.
The survey was initiated by the European Union of Associations of Translation Companies (EUATC) a decade ago and is now a joint initiative by international language industry associations and organizations. Eurotradus is an EUATC network member. Among all of the industry details covered in the survey, some attention was given to universities and new graduates in particular. The survey highlights the gaps between training programs and the recruitment of new talent and encourages closer cooperation between academia and the language industry.
In fact, the Eurotradus team has been in partnership with various Lithuanian universities: Vilnius University, Kaunas University of Technology and Mykolas Romeris University. As our industry has witnessed rapid technological changes, we feel confident that we are supporting new generations of linguists who will enter the market and make steady steps towards their professional growth. We are always looking for new talents that we can help grow into real professionals, therefore each year we invite students for internship at Eurotradus and familiarize them with the everyday life of a modern translation company. Moreover, we give guest lectures on the latest translation technologies at these universities. Eurotradus together with the Association of Lithuanian Translation Companies initiated and supported the implementation of a translation project management course that has been kicked off at Vilnius University at the beginning of the current study year. The reality is that the number of translation students is decreasing worldwide and skill gaps are still persisting, but the good news is that the higher education institutions are trying to update their curricula according to business needs, not fast enough though. Currently, we would encourage academia to focus on the growing demand of post-editors, i.e. on translators who work on machine translated texts. Human + machine is not the future but the present.
