At Lionbridge, we pride ourselves on our network of partners. Our offices in 25 countries are supported by thousands of partners who enable our clients' global success. Lionbridge's network of worldwide translation partners sets the bar for professionalism within the industry. We are always recruiting the best to work with us in all capacities.

Qualification Process
Lionbridge requires that all potential partners (agencies or freelancers) complete the qualification questionnaire, where you have the opportunity to enter information on expertise, infrastructure and internal quality and management processes. In addition to this, we ask you to provide an up-to-date CV/résumé (for freelancers) or company profile (brochure, marketing material). The minimum requirements are:

• University degree in translation (or equivalent) and/or at least 4 years' experience as a professional translator
• Translation competence
• Extensive knowledge of relevant source languages; all translators work into their mother tongue
• Computer skills (hardware, software, internet etc.)
• Permanent and reliable internet connectivity
• Familiarity with the translation cycle and quality management
• Test translation

Translation Test
Potential partners are generally given a general IT localization test. The test is not required when the potential partner is a translation company with a proven record of successful localization projects. In such a case, Lionbridge requests that the partner participate in a pilot project.
When the partner is being qualified to work on a given subject matter or for a particular client account, a specialized test is required. Lionbridge maintains a pool of test translations covering a number of subject matters, for example EU government, telecommunications, medical/pharmaceutical, marketing/advertising, finance, legal, life sciences, ERP, engineering, chemical and automotive.
Tests are evaluated using the Lionbridge standard evaluation sheet. The test evaluation is performed by a Lionbridge internal translator or by an approved, experienced freelance QA resource.
Specific quality criteria evaluated in the test translation is below. Failing the translation test would disqualify the potential partner for working with Lionbridge.

• Language quality
• Terminology
• Translation accuracy
• Style and tone
• Functional equivalency
• Country standards

Pilot Project
Pilot projects are live tests in which a potential partner (pre-qualified through references and the questionnaire) is evaluated on actual project performance. The evaluation is not limited only to linguistic knowledge, but also tools expertise, communication, project management, integrity of deliveries and respect of deadlines. Pilot projects are carefully chosen and are always projects with large completion timeframes to always include a full review by the Lionbridge team.

Contractual Agreement and Data Storage
The last steps in the qualification process require the signing of a Service Level Agreement and entering the partner's profile in the Lionbridge global vendor database.

Service Level Agreement
Before any project is assigned to the new partner, we ask you to sign the Lionbridge Service Level Agreement (SLA), which includes clauses on job request and delivery conditions, general responsibilities, liability and indemnities, specific compliance, payment, duration, validity and general legal clauses. For specific customer or project requirements a different level of agreement can be applied.

Database Information
Once the partner is qualified, its profile is entered and maintained in the worldwide Lionbridge vendor database. The profile will include all the information included in the questionnaire such as full contact information, partner's details (number of employees, resource pool capacity, price lists, CAT tools used, SLA signature date, domains of expertise, etc.).

Working with Lionbridge
Partners are assigned to a project taking into account the project scope, customer requirements, language combination, product expertise and subject matter expertise. For on-going projects, dedicated teams are identified and assigned to work on the same project for its entire duration. In this way, we retain expertise and product knowledge, and we have partners ready to start on a future assignment at short notice.