"Placement agencies only profit and are exploiters", "They keep up to one third of the fee of a language mediator". Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to hear such comments. We also read about "black sheep" who occasionally "exploit" freelance interpreters and translators.
As with other things, people unfortunately remember these few negative statements more than the many positive aspects.
Soberly speaking, we say, eyes open when choosing a job and employer. Every interpreter or translator colleague can and should examine his or her own path, weigh it up and only then go for it. The choice is between full self-employment, freelance part-time work or being an employee.
Enough with the negative reviews and prejudices! We, the ARIANA team, want to show that there is another way, that there are many fair and professional agencies in our industry. For the benefit of our language mediator colleagues, we have compiled a list of the positive aspects of agency support.
As a successful placement agency with more than 30 years of experience and a network of more than 1,000 international interpreter and translator colleagues, we know that permanent and freelance interpreters or translators can certainly benefit from a framework contract with an agency such as ours.
Of course, we also know that there are some black sheep on the market, as mentioned at the beginning. We can only warn against this and recommend that you take a close look at the agency. The company history, the reference clients and the details in the framework agreements provide information about the professionalism and quality.
Good agencies value their freelancers and permanent employees. They pay attention to appreciation as well as fair remuneration and retain their staff. Because everyone knows that acquiring good new staff is not an easy or quick matter.
Good agencies also constantly strive for a constant volume of orders.
We have listed further advantages below and can name them with a clear conscience as REAL advantages.
Here they are, the 10 real advantages for language mediators of working with an agency for language services:
1. No need to search for and acquire clients or orders on your own
2. Placement with clients according to your own qualifications
3. Payment security: We, the agency, pay in advance if an end client pays late or not at all.
4. Complete billing via us: No tedious or time-consuming documentation and order processing. The agency takes over these tasks.
5. Full transparency in order placement and billing for freelancers and for permanent employees,
6. Exchange of experience through colleague network,
7. Expansion of own customer network,
8. Further education and training with our placement and support,
9. Promotion of special additional qualifications such as sales,
10. Expansion of references or fields of activity for interpreters and translators. A court interpreter, for example, can be given a tour of a factory as an assignment if desired and expand his or her references. A translator with a technical specialisation can, if desired and with the support of our project management, venture into other sectors and, for example, correct medical texts.

In order to understand why the fee from the end client cannot be passed on 100% to the language mediators
, but why the agency retains a corresponding share, it is worth taking a look behind the scenes.
We answer the question: What expenses does the placement of orders entail for the agency?
1. First and foremost here are marketing measures as well as acquisition and sales activities: Potential customers are professionally researched, contacted and converted into real customers at great expense in terms of time, personnel and money. Whether with a skilful web presence, costly Google ads, constantly new content on the World Wide Web and in social networks, via dialogue marketing, through cross-media advertising campaigns or with cold calls. A professional agency will draw on a wealth of resources to reach new customers and retain existing ones.
2. Once the order is in the bag and in the disposition, trained employees search for the appropriate translator or interpreter colleagues according to the client's requirements.
3. Important information from the client regarding the order is documented by the agency and passed on to the linguists. Texts to be translated are analysed and, through skilful project management, passed on to the appropriate translator colleagues in a targeted manner.
4. The date, location and conditions of the assignment are negotiated, written down and, after a successful assignment, immediately converted into an invoice for the end customer and a fee credit for the interpreter or translator. 

The processes and work described require administrative skills, knowledge of data protection and accounting skills. In addition, this work requires the availability and knowledge of various tools and software solutions.  

We as an agency, but above all our employees, have the necessary know-how for this.
It goes without saying that we pay our staff accordingly and pass on a share of the language mediator's fee for these services, and this is certainly also the case for the interpreters and translators we support.
In this respect, every language mediator can now decide for themselves whether they can and would like to fulfil all of the aforementioned tasks themselves or whether they would like to make use of our professional support for this without any further expense. Because we see ourselves as a solution for communication, as a mediator and supporter for clients and for language mediators. Through us, an interpreter or translator can accept his or her assignment in an uncomplicated manner, pursue his or her passion as a language mediator in a relaxed manner and receive his or her fee immediately. We hope we have been able to adequately explain that this fee cannot correspond to the 100% described at the beginning. 

In summary, we can say that freelance colleagues clearly benefit from working with a professional agency. We believe that we create a mutual win-win situation, generate a stronger presence together, gain more reach and build an international network.
In the long term, this will strengthen and secure our industry. 

Contact us and become part of our international network. This ARIANA community currently consists of over 1000 national and international freelance linguists who work successfully with us.