Land a new job with our interview tips specifically tailored for the localization industry. In this video, you’ll learn 9 crucial strategies from our hiring managers – Beat, Camila, Ilan, Olga, Senem, and Vera – to help you make a standout impression.
Our series with insights and practical tips shared by our panel of hiring managers from both buyer and vendor sides of the localization world continues.
Camila Pedraza
Want to ace your next localization job interview? This is what our six hiring managers shared with us. One of the things is not necessarily thoroughly researching a company, but researching it, right, I feel that I understand that looking for a job is extremely demanding. And if you have to thoroughly research, every single company that you’re applying to, it becomes a full time job and you will not have time to do whatever it else else it is that you’re doing. So you do want to at least research and get an understanding enough that you can, number one, ask smart questions come with enough information that the questions that you’re asking show interest, show that you’re knowledgeable show that you pay attention to detail, show that you are interested in the company doing a better job than they’re currently doing. Right? So enough that you have something to go off and not just come in and be like, Yeah, I have no idea what Skillshare does. Because then it’s like, Why do you even want to work here? Is this like the right place for you? So yes, preparing is not a thorough research, it is enough research that you can ask interesting questions during the interview. And we have some common ground that we can build with I think,
Vera Richards
let your let your interest and your passion show in the interview, find something which you find fascinating about the role, you know, whether it’s your passion for the different cultures, or whether it’s your passion for learning new skills, new tools, just let it shine the interest from your side, because again, as I said, I think that’s 90% of success for any job, not just localization job, if you show to the potential employer, that this is something you breathe, and just can’t wait to be part of a certain team show that also show your personality, because lots of the employers are not only testing you on your knowledge of certain skill, but they are also looking how well you are going to fit into a team. That’s really important. In our industry, there’s a lot of teamwork, which is necessary for successful delivery in the end. So if the person is really good at what they do, but yet, they’re not going to fit in with the team, it might cause issues. So again, let your personality shine on blood, urine, and enthusiasm, shine, I think those are two big ingredients for success,
Ilan Bloch
prepare more, because you know what to say like, you want to get a second chance for that first good impression. So you need to be completely clear about your story. I’m not saying to make things up. On the contrary, but you know, like, sometimes you have breakpoints in a career, you you’ve done, quote unquote, irrelevant things. So be just prepared to to explain what what you did, what happened, and most importantly, what you’ve learned from that and the skills that you’ve acquired. Because truly formal education is really expired. By the time you get to the mark, it’s mechanical, the you, you will get it, get an education learning degree for three years, four years, it new tools come out every every year, every six months, you have something new so so that that will be expired. But the skills and the skills that you’ve acquired and what you’ve done with your experience, that’s what you want to put forward. And that’s what you’re bringing to your next job, all the rest is in the past. So you really want to be very articulate about that. And because this is what you’re selling to the recruiter,
Camila Pedraza
I sometimes recommend it that doesn’t have to be for me, but I do recommend if you can research the person that you’re interviewing with, but uh, it’s different interviewing with an HR person than interviewing with a hiring manager that doesn’t know what localization is, but needs a localization manager, for example, or you’re working for someone who’s like the head of localization and so that way, you know what type of questions you need to come with, and what you need to expect from each of these people. So from an HR person, you’re going to be wanting to ask more generic questions that will want the HR person to put you in touch with the right person to answer those questions. But don’t overwhelm them with things that they’re obviously not going to be able to answer with the localization manager, you want to get down into the nitty gritty of things you maybe want to ask about the tools that are being used, you know, the strategies, the vendors, not necessarily the specific vendors, but are using machine translation vendors are using human translation vendors. Do you have a multitude of vendors depending on the different types of content? What type of content are you translating? What are the I mean, you are already a localization manager? What do you need help with? What is it that I’m going to come and do for you? So yes, be curious about who you’re talking to and tailor your speech and your questions to the right person.
Senem Konuklu
First of all, yes, they should be prepared like preparation is the key to success. And so other than housekeeping rules that your camera needs to work well, your background scene needs to be natural, and you should have a good connection. So these are like the basic housekeeping tasks that you need to undertake. But the real preparation comes with like reading the job description very carefully, prepare like specific examples of your skills and experience, align with the job requirements, and practice common interview questions. So prepare your answers and practice limit friends. And I think the most important questions that they should have the answers, like, tell me about yourself? And my Are you interested in our company? I think these are the very key questions that you should be prepared. So tell me about yourself, like while answering these questions. Should you talk about your high school? Or, Oh, we just start by your, like university degree? Or would you mention the university name? Would it make any impact? So maybe not? So you need to be very, very prepared about this question, because that’s the first impression you will give to the recruiter. And that’s why I think these are the most important questions. And why are you interested in our company, I think it shows that excitement of the candidate. And there should be a very good reason for this. In addition to these, like resources to company, learn as much as you can about the product services, mission and values, and be yourself like authentic, don’t be afraid of showing that you are really excited about the unfortunately, yeah, technical questions,
Beat Stauber
for example, you don’t know what you’re gonna get, it’s hard to prepare for those, I think with technical questions just come with the knowledge you have, because I’ve had cases where I would ask certain questions. And I could tell by the answer to some, somebody went, you know, did a Google search and just read some stuff, but they didn’t really comprehend it, they just look for some industry topics. And they tried to speak through it, but you could tell they didn’t really fully understand it. So I think from a technical knowledge point of view, whatever you have at the time, is probably what you’re going to present, don’t try to study up too much on that, I think it’s very difficult to do that. And make sure you understand the job description to requirements that you should write. So if it’s listed on there, you should probably know what it means. So that those are obviously areas we’re going to talk about. So if you really feel like half the requirements, you didn’t even know what they mean, then you might have a hard time,
Olga Gulla-Kowalik
there is a certain technique to that, that hiring managers tend to like it’s called Star, you can Google that about, I think it’s quite helpful to structure your thoughts. So maybe just to give you a brief idea, for example, you are asked to prove your skill in a given area, you will start with us, that’s for situation. So basically does the background story of what was happening. And you can get give some relevant details of that, then I think you can go to T and that stands for tasks. And basically, that’s the description of your own responsibility in the situation that you were just describing before. And then we go to a action. And that’s the key part here. So it shows how you reacted to the situation. So what actions you took, and what was your behaviour. And then finally, we have r and that stands for results. And here, you want to show how your actions translated into some concrete, hopefully positive results. So this is really like a good structure to keep in mind, where you just show what was happening, how you reacted to that, and what results it brought. I think it’s quite simple, and yet quite effective, at least for me. And I think, like I mentioned before, if you practice the interviews, you can gain confidence, and you can feel so much better. So I think just do it as often as possible, either by taking part in reality recruitment processes, or just by by, let’s say, arranging some kind of mock interviews for weight, for example, your friends or mentor,
Camila Pedraza
I currently work for a company where we’re not going to care so much and we will work from home. So we want you to be comfortable in your home and we want you to be wearing what you would normally wear, we are that type of company, right? I would still recommend if you’re unsure of what the type of company is, dress it up a little bit. And you know, make sure that you look professional. This is this can never go wrong. I mean, worst case scenario will come off as maybe being a little bit too stiff or a little bit too formal. But I don’t think anybody’s ever going to not hire you and if they don’t hire you because you were too formal the way you dress. That’s not a company you want to work for anyways. So I still recommend dressing it up a little bit making sure that you are looking your best 100%
