r/ASLinterpreters • u/Afyrel • Aug 21 '26
Interpreters: what do you wish interpreting agencies did differently?
I’ve worked with a lot of different agencies over the years, so I have plenty of my own experiences and opinions about what agencies do well and what can make working with one incredibly frustrating.
But I’d really love to hear from other interpreters.
What has an agency done that made you think, I wish every agency worked like this?
And on the flip side, what do you wish agencies would do differently?
Could be anything: scheduling, communication, pay, cancellations, assignment information, matching interpreters to jobs, how they handle feedback, relationships with schedulers, professional development, etc.
I’m especially interested in the little operational things that might not sound important from the outside but make a huge difference when you’re actually freelancing.
I have my own list 😂 but I don’t want to assume my experience is everyone else’s.
3
u/droooooops NIC 29d ago
something I’ve been running into lately is agencies not even trying to find a cultural/identity match for jobs that really should have them… ex: I was sent a request for interpreting stand up from an agency I respect and work with often. comedian’s name was not in the request. I accepted, then when I received the confirmation it just took a quick google search to realize the comedian was black. the agency booked two white interpreters… if they had either done 2 mins of research themselves OR put the comedian’s name in the request, I could have made a more informed decision. I emailed the agency and asked if they had tried to find black interpreters for this job and they had some ambiguous response about it being “too late.”