Applicant Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

This page needs revision to be brought up to date with our 2018 Relaunch

Overview

Here is our complete guide to our personnel selection requirements, criteria and procedure, including documentation and related tools. As always, feedback and questions are welcome.

What are we looking for in our potential members?

While there are certain qualities and indeed requirements we have in mind, it's difficult to describe "the ideal Guerrilla Translator". Firstly, it would be rare if not impossible for any one person to be “ideal”, and secondly, our needs and dynamic balance as a collective will change over time. In fact, our “ideal” is likely to always be a moving target, depending on who else is working in the collective at any given moment. However, there are some crucial qualities that anyone we consider should have.

Basic criteria would include:

• Ability to translate (and/or edit) into at least one target language
• Interest in working in a co-operative collective group
• Good skills for working independently and remotely, including time management and communication
• Excellent communications skills (yes, so important we said it twice)
• Strong interest in enough of the topics we cover
• Willingness to learn our procedures, tools, governance model
• Willingness to make a commitment to the team

What about credentials?

We are firmly post-credentialist. What this means is that we value experience, whether its obtained in an academic setting or hands on. In fact we think that a combination of both is ideal. We don't like the way that translation is taught in many places and vouch for a style that is more humane and closer in spirit to the feel of the original material. In fact, we often find that joining GT is a de-schooling process for translators. Beyond translation, it is also a learning process on how to relate, communicate and work together within a Commons. These things are neither easy, nor taught in school, but if you decide to join us we'll give you all the support we can to make sure you are brought up to speed.

If you have worked hard for your credentials, by all means share them with us and tell us your experiences. If you have been translating for a long time and are self taught, we want to know about that too. We are always learning from each other in GT and we are all committed to continual growth and improvement, not only in translation, but also in cooperation and all the processes we regularly carry out as part of our work in the collective.

How do we test potential members?

If you're thinking about joining we need you to be familiar with our philosophy, procedure and way of working. The best way to start is by reading our Guerrilla Translation Handbook at your own pace and contacting us once you're done. But alas! The Handbook is not finished yet so, for the time being, please read the following articles:

1. [Punk Elegance: How Guerrilla Translation reimagined itself for Open Cooperativism] summarizes our history and our latest objectives and thinking.
2. The Open Coop Governance Model in Guerrilla Translation: an Overview is an introduction to our Governance Model.
3. To be or not be a Guerrilla Translation describes what you can expect from working with the collective, and what we will expect of you.
4. Ongoing Evaluation Criteria and Basic Responsibilities is a summary of the mutual responsibilities we undertake ongoing.
5. Community Rhythms keep us accountable to each other and are the linchpin of our community.
6. Commitment Statement this is the "contract" we sign with each other every three months. Please take a look - if you're willing to join the collective we will expect you to sign it.

While reading this, encourage applicants to take notes and give us their feedback in written form, which we will read carefully and assess for compatibility/understanding. To be clear, we don't expect you to internalise or memorize any of these, just to be aware of the ask and to be familiar with the way we do things.

Once we're both on the same page, we will ask you to do a couple of translation (or editing) tests. More on this below.

Description of procedure

Our Independent Evaluation Procedure is meant to allow each person to record and share their impressions of the applicant's "feedback form", and their opinion regarding whether to follow up. These opinions are documented, shared and discussed by a small evaluation committee of core members. We do this to ensure confidentiality and discretion with potentially sensitive material.

The process is as follows:

• After receiving a completed feedback form, each member of the committee evaluates its content separately by following a simple template (Pros, Cons, Undecided, Feedback, Veredict)
• Once the evaluation is filled out, its completion is noted in a Loomio thread.
• Survey evaluations are only shared among the committee when all members have completed theirs independently.

This way, committee members can do the evaluations independently without being influenced by assessments already completed by the others, and instead compare them at the same time.

Once applicants are approved, we'll give the applicant feedback over videochat (or, whenever possible, in person). This is a good chance to talk things over, answer any questions and, generally, get to know each other.

Once we've notified the applicant our intent to collaborate, we recommend visiting the two following links:

• Our wiki's Welcome page. It contains many tips, links and guidelines and serves as a quick-start guide to the collective.
• Our entry on Ongoing Evaluation Criteria and Basic Responsibilities. New applicants go through a three month introductory period in the collective where we'll value the quality of the collaboration. Once this period has passed, we will compare the applicant's self assessment to our own that we're all in the same page and want to go forward.