Lessons Learned from Starting Our Language Industry Careers: Part 1

By MIIS Alumni Kyle Chow and Yuxuan Lai

The job search is something that everybody has to go through at some point or another. At times, it can feel like purgatory. You send in more applications than you can count, yet all you hear back is radio silence, and you wonder why the company can’t do the bare minimum of at least sending a rejection email to give you certainty on the situation. On top of that, the past couple years has also been a time of change for the language industry, and with that has come a changing market landscape, making the job hunt that much more challenging for us localizers.

Kyle and Lai are both recent alumni from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey, a graduate school with a localization management master's program, and as people who went through the job search during these uncertain times, we learned a lot through our experiences that we’d like to share to others who are newer to the industry.

This month, Lai shares a couple of tips based on her job search this year:

• Resist the pressure to rush. 

  You have your own timeline. It’s easy to go into panic mode when you see peers landing jobs but are still actively searching yourself. This is not a race, but rather a chance to plan your own career path. Cautiously evaluate the opportunities you have and probe internally to see which match with your values the most. Remember: You are choosing a team that you’re likely to be interacting more with than family and friends, so don’t rush to make such an important decision.

  
  

• When it comes to networking, put quality over quantity.

  There is no magic formula for networking, but if there’s one thing I could have done better, I’d say prioritize following up with a select few connections over reaching out to hundreds of new people. Have informational interviews and make notes about insights from your interviewee - even if it’s just one thing! - and regularly follow up with them to update how you apply this to your daily life and the results you’ve seen. Don’t be scared of thinking “What kind of value can I bring to the table when talking to so and so Director or CEO?” - giving them visibility on how their words change you is often quite a lot of value in itself.

So, to those of you actively looking, don’t give up! It can be tough, but things always have a way of working out in the end if you keep at it.

In next month’s newsletter, look forward to part 2 of this topic where Kyle will share some tips for after you’ve landed that job!