FAQ

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to Interpreter Calendars. We are proud to launch the first web-based recruitment platform specifically built for conference interpreters and organizers.

Sincere regards,

Interpreter Calendars

 

Interpreter Calendars is an online calendar that helps conference organizers in Switzerland easily find and contact available conference interpreters.The platform is run as a non-profit association under Swiss law (see Statutes).

Value for money : IC has proven itself to be the best offer on the market. At only 12 CHF per month, your annual membership fee is more than covered by a single day of conference interpreting.

Non-profit association : All proceeds are invested into further developing the association, community and online platform.

On-demand access : The calendar is easy to use and available 24/7.

Quality : All IC members and recruiters are individually vetted by the committee as per the IC Statutes to ensure that they meet the requisite professional standards.

Visibility : Any registered recruiter or IC member who wishes to recruit a team of interpreters will see interpreters’ names when they search for a specific language combination, and can choose to contact those interpreters through the calendar or privately. The interpreters who have most recently updated their calendar appear at the top of the list.

Professional community : Interpreter Calendars is run by a community of professional interpreters for the benefit of interpreters and recruiters alike. By joining IC, you can engage with a community of well-established colleagues who collectively manage the site and its policies. In addition, IC social events - organised in Geneva at least twice a year - are an excellent way to meet like-minded colleagues and get more involved in running the association.

Quality : All interpreters listed on IC are vetted by the committee as per the IC Statutes to ensure that they meet the requisite professional standards. Many IC members are also AIIC members; those that are not have proven that they are professionally qualified and work under AIIC conditions.

Ease of use & reliability : Search for a specific day and language combination to see a list of all interpreters’ availability and send requests to interpreters. Those who have updated their calendar most recently will appear at the top of the list.

24/7 access : The calendar is available at any time of day or night.

Responsiveness : When you send requests through IC, interpreters immediately receive an SMS as well as an email to ensure a quick response.

Non-profit association : The platform is free for recruiters. Interpreters pay very low membership fees and all proceeds are used to maintain and develop the platform for the benefit of the interpreting community.

Joining IC is not automatic. The elected committee examines every application to ensure it meets the following entry criteria (see Statutes):

  • AIIC active members are automatically eligible to join
  • Non-AIIC colleagues must send a scanned copy of a remunerated contract whose provisions respect AIIC terms and conditions (equal or higher).

IC has three levels of visibility:

  1. Visible to organisers : Recruiters with an IC account search for specific days and can see which interpreters are available. We recommend that you enable this function to benefit from the IC platform.
  2. Interpreter searchable : Other interpreters can search for periods of up to 3 consecutive days and view your availability for those dates (available, option or unavailable). If you disable this function, you will not see your own name in searches.
  3. Public : Anyone who searches for your language combination on IC can see your name but cannot see your availability or any other personal data. If you disable this function, your name will not appear on the public version of the website.

Here are some tips to improve your chances of being hired :

  1. Keep your agenda up to date. The more recently you have updated your calendar, the higher you will appear in lists of available interpreters (because the lists are ordered by most recent update, rather than in alphabetical order). Bear in mind that recruiters can see when you last updated your calendar and may assume that your information is inaccurate if it has not been updated recently.
  2. Put a link to IC in your email signature so recruiters know they can find you there.
  3. Look at our list of organisers. If you already work for them, let them know they can find your availability on IC.

When you receive an offer, click "Yes", then also respond in writing using the site’s messaging function. The "Yes" box updates your calendar, while the message is a written record of your formal acceptance. If you cannot accept an offer, click “No” and send the recruiter an accompanying message.

Members can access the "Organizer List" tab at any time. Click on each letter to see the recruiters under that letter. We only work with organisers with an AIIC agreement or an unblemished reputation on the private market. Undercutting agencies cannot use Interpreter Calendars. Our policy is: when in doubt, leave them out.

Our annual membership fee for interpreters is 144 CHF per year (12 CHF per month) if you pay by bank transfer. If you require another payment option, please contact us at admin@interpretercalendars.com

Please pay the entire annual fee by bank transfer before 31st December to the following account :

This really makes our job much easier not to mention that we'll be saving quite a bit by avoiding hefty PayPal fees.

Interpreter Calendars
N° de compte: 14-260547-5
IBAN: CH16 0900 0000 1426 0547 5
BIC: POFICHBEXXX


This payment will cover the following year. Payments are tax-deductible and receipts can be provided on request.

If you wish to leave the association before the end of the year, please notify the Treasurer (admin@interpretercalendars.com) and we will reimburse the outstanding amount.

If your bank charges you exorbitant fees for an online transfer, please email admin@interpretercalendars.com and we will send you a bank payment slip so you can pay in cash at La Poste in Switzerland for a fee of CHF 3.10. Some members also choose to pay by Wise (previously Transferwise) or other online multi-currency platforms with low transfer/conversion fees.

Please send an email to support@interpretercalendars.com with your old and new email address. We will be happy to address your concerns as soon as possible.

Sometimes work offers sent through IC may land in your spam folder. Our SMS alerts act as a fail-safe in such cases. To prevent this from happening again, kindly follow the instructions below :

Gmail :
Mark incorrectly filed e-mail as "Not Spam" :
  • Open the most recent e-mail you want to whitelist in the spam folder.
  • Look for the “x SPAM” tag next to the title of the e-mail.
  • Click on the ‘x’ and the tag will disappear.
Create a filter :
  • Open ‘filters’ in Gmail settings
  • Click “Create a new filter”
  • In the "From" box, type no-reply@interpretercalendars.com
  • Click "Create filter"
  • Tick "Never send it to spam"
  • Click “Create filter”.
(Other email services have similar steps.)

IC is a non-profit, member-run Association, managed on a voluntary basis by a committee of three members: Secretary, Treasurer and Web Coordinator. Committee members are all working conference interpreters and are elected by active IC members for a two-year term.

The IC General Assembly elected Kate Davis as Secretary, Gaëlle Le Gall as Treasurer and Jéssica Ayala Tejedor as Web Coordinator.

Previous committee members:

Maisie Greenwood (Secretary), Alia Rahal (Secretary), Kiersten Weeks (Treasurer) and Gabriel Cordova (Web Coordinator).

Interpreter Calendars was founded in 2015 and established as a non-profit association under Swiss law in 2016.

The role of the IC Committee is set out in the Statutes.

In practical terms, the Committee also carries out the following tasks :

  • Day-to-day management of IC;
  • Engaging with recruiters to facilitate use of IC for interpreter recruitment;
  • Engaging with members and prospective members to support and expand the IC community;
  • Website maintenance;
  • Exploring ways to improve the platform;
  • Building a community of interpreters around the shared values of professionalism, quality, ethics and collaboration;
  • Organising an annual IC General Assembly and holding elections for the Committee positions every two years;
  • Organising social events for IC members.

Drop us a line at info@interpretercalendars.com or use the site’s bug report icon for technical feedback. We will be happy to address your concerns as soon as possible.