Employability, Entrepreneurship
and Employer Engagement
Case study
Summary
Title of activity: Language Career Talks
Name of person submitting case study: F. Chouc (French Teaching Fellow and Career Liaison
Officer) and L. Chambers (Career Advisor)
Institution: Heriot-Watt University
Course(s)/ subject(s) : UG (translation and interpreting, applied linguistics and translation,
international management and languages, teaching of English as a foreign language) and PG
(translating and interpreting, translating and computer assisted translation tools, translation and
European studies)
Year(s) : aimed mainly at 4th years, MSc students and recent graduates, but also open to 2nd and 1st
year students.
Type of activity
The department for Language and Intercultural Studies, in conjunction with Career Services,
organised a series of career talks and workshops throughout the year. Guest-speakers included
alumni, who came to share their experience of the transition from student to professional, and gave
an insight into their activity, but also potential employers for trained linguists, who came to explain
more about their expectations and the day-to-day working life in their field. Some of these talks were
organised as part of the Routes into Languages programme, and open to students from other
universities.
Context
The series of talks was developed through the Department’s contacts with alumni and with employers
and international organisations, following career fairs and using the alumni mailing list developed
within the Department.
Talks on the following topics were included :
Translation Careers at the European Commission – representative of the EU Commission
Working with agencies as a freelance translator / interpreter – ILS
Translation Project Management and Working as a freelance translator – alumni
Working as an in-house translator –Wohanka & Kollegen
Working as a translator in the European Commission : practical demonstration of a
translation – Deputy-head of the English Department (and alumni), DGT
Interpreting Careers at the European Commission – Head of the DGI and Head of the
English booths at the DGI
Public Service Interpreting – Interpretation & Translation Service, The City of Edinburgh
Council
Working as an in-house editor for Collins Cobuild – Alumni
Following these talks, informative notes were distributed through the alumni, 4 th year and MSc mailing
list. Short interviews of some of the speakers were produced and are available on the career web-site
of the Department (http://www.sml.hw.ac.uk/Langcareers/) and on the YouTube© channel
HWLangCareers (http://www.youtube.com/user/HWLangCareers ).
Rationale and objectives
These talks were organised in order to give students a better understanding of the career-paths open
to specialist linguists, and to give them an opportunity to have a constructive dialogue with former
students, who made the transition into the working environment with success, and with potential
employers, who were able to explain more about the realities of the workplace and the expectations of
recruiters.
Assessment
N/A
Reflection and feedback
Guest-speakers have expressed their interest in participating in this series of talks next year, and
these sessions have led to successful job applications for graduate jobs and internships for this year’s
graduates. More alumni have also offered to come and share their experience and expertise, after
hearing of this year’s Career Talks.
Examples of student feed-back
(selection from the survey realised at the end of the year, amongst 4 th years and MSc students)
[The talks] were helpful in gaining insight into working as a translator, and particularly illuminating in
terms of the realities/difficulties of getting started as a translator.
The talks were definitely very specific - something I value highly for there are normally far too few
talks which are specific about a career as translator/interpreter.
Overall I think the range of speakers was very impressive. Both freelance and in-house work was
covered, and the insights into particular skills sought after- computer literacy, flexibility, - were very
helpful.
There has been a very wide range of talks which were very useful as they demonstrated the range of
jobs available to us - often in places or with employers I had never considered previously. They were
very interesting, detailed and valuable to hear the information from people working in the roles to
allow us to find out exactly what different types of jobs would entail. They have shown the
opportunities available to translation graduates and have given me the confidence that I would be
capable, qualified and good enough to do those types of jobs with those types of employers (e.g. EU).
Further comments
These talks have been organised as part of a broader strategy developed by Career Services and the
Languages and Intercultural Department to promote employability amongst our language graduates. It
complements the annual career fair, the web-site, the YouTube© channel and the networking strategy
based on the alumni mailing list.