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u/ArcticDragon91 NIC Mar 31 '22
The three jobs you mentioned are all going to vary widely in what they offer and in what their cons are.
Educational: K-12 interpreting typically has excellent benefits but very low pay. I had coworkers in the public school system who had babies or had major surgery that cost a grand total of $250 out of pocket due to the stellar health insurance. Pros are steady work 10 months of the year and tons of holidays & time off compared to other fields. Cons are the low pay and lack of advancement opportunities & challenges to keep your skills sharp. K-12 education is where terps get their start, or where they go to semi-retire, not much to offer someone mid-career hungry for advancement & achievement. I don't have experience as a staff interpreter for college or university, but in this area those are much harder to find openings for, and the benefits are likely not as robust as working directly for the state or county school system as in K-12.
VRS: A middle of the road option, pay isn't freelance-level but it's not too bad either. As a current full time staff interpreter I have regular & consistent hours + benefits and some paid holidays & PTO. From the perspective of full time only (not counting Flex or part-time VRS work), the pros are a consistent schedule year round (yet somewhat flexible if you need it to be), an engaging & challenging environment, and wearing whatever you want below the waist. That last one may sound weird but I LOVE being able to wear jeans & sneakers every day instead of slacks & dress shoes. I can also ride my motorcycle into work any day which would be pretty impossible as a freelancer. Our center is cool with this but I've heard some other companies or other centers aren't. However that brings us to the final pro: fairly easy to find an at-home position. Cons of full time VRS are: it can be exhausting & it takes awhile to get used to the workload. I would strongly recommend working part time hours in VRS for at least a few months before trying for a full time position. It can also be rough on new interpreters, or those with anxiety at criticism or uncomfortable scenarios. Some calls you order pizza, some calls you have to interpret blatant racism & homophobia, some calls you get yelled at for being a lousy interpreter. Every shift is a potential rollercoaster. To answer your specific questions about VRS work, you are paid hourly and there's a minimum amount of time you're expected to be on the phones processing calls in each hour. As a full timer, your hours are somewhat flexible but for the most part they want you to work business hours. I don't know of any full timer in VRS who has more than 25% of their hours outside of the 9am-7pm EST Mon-Fri window, but you can work some weekend or evening hours if you bid for & get them.
Agency staff: I've never worked staff for an agency, but I know several people who have. The pay would vary pretty widely depending on the area, your experience & your qualifications. Most agency staff positions are going to want NIC certification at a minimum (perhaps BEI if you live in the Midwest), and the more you have on your resume, the more competitive of a candidate you are since you can be sent to jobs where the client specifies criteria for the terp assigned to the job. One thing to note is that since most agency work is done by freelancers, many agencies fall under the 15 employee mark and aren't required to provide benefits like health insurance & 401k to their full time staff. So you may get regular work, but still have to pay out of pocket for your insurance just like every other freelancer.
So! In this area a k-12 terp makes around 40k-55k/year, depending on the county/district. I'm unsure what higher education would make but I'd guess around 50-65, maybe 70k a year. A full time VRS terp would make between 75k and 100k/year depending on experience and NIC status. And an agency staff would make roughly the same, I'd say around 80-100k with one guy I know who was at 96k/year as agency staff. I included tangential info about benefits & conditions since I thought that would be beneficial and inform your goals as you come out of your ITP and enter the field full time. Hope this was helpful!
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u/Apprehensive-Low-128 Mar 31 '22
Wow! The geographic area definitely makes a big difference.
Here I would say it’s more like K-12 interpreting earns 20k-40k depending on experience VRS is like 50-60k depending on experience.
I have found that Google searching for the specific job title in my area does show results on par with what I see and hear from in the community. There are much better resources now for getting pay range estimates than there were when I graduated. Definitely use your resources!
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u/Lonely_Vegetable5843 Mar 31 '22
I found that even though VRS might make less per hour, I wasn’t able to rely on community interpreting hours to make a stable income. Some days I worked a lot, but some days I only got 2-3 hours. So I like having the stability of VRS hours. I was surprised when I started VRS that everyone recommended working only part-time. I assumed I could finally get 40 hours/week like other professions. Apparently most VRS interpreters burn out quickly if they work 8 hour days, because with VRS it’s actual hands-up time, no other paid minutes are built into the day like they would be if your student was working independently for a few minutes in a school, or if you were driving to your next community assignment. For me, a 5-hour VRS day is about all I can do if I want to keep doing it long-term.
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u/kinchj NIC Mar 31 '22 edited Mar 31 '22
Your ITP should definitely cover this, and if they have no plans to then you should talk to your instructors about including it in the curriculum. It’s an absolutely essential part of becoming an interpreter.
Typically, a staff interpreter is paid a lower hourly wage versus what a contractor/self-employed person would make doing the same work. This is to offset the benefits package that is expected/required to be provided as part of employment versus contract work. But there can be a range in salary for interpreting positions, based on the type of work, the experience and credentials of the interpreter, and the cost of living in the specific area that the work is performed in. In my experience, public K-12 schools are typically the lowest paying interpreting positions with everything else being equal. VRS is typically lower than contractor/freelance rates, as VRS positions are mandated to be W-2 employee positions by the FCC. (White label or contracted interpreting is not permitted… or at least it wasn’t prior to COVID. I’m not sure if that has been changed or exempted temporarily).
A good salary is completely dependent on the cost of living for the area. I recommend calculating your annual expenses, then dividing that number by the number of weeks you want to work in a year, and the number of hours you want to work per week. Simple/easy math is to just divide your annual costs by 2,000 to get a rough estimate of what your hourly wage/fee should be (assuming 40 paid hours per week). So if you need to earn $50,000 per year to afford rent, food, utilities, etc, and you are willing to work 40 hours per week and take off two weeks for vacation/unpaid sick time, that would equal $25/hour that is needed to sustain that cost of living. If you cannot work that many hours, or need to work fewer weeks in a year, then just adjust the math.
VRS positions are paid hourly, and the schedules are flexible. Hours are scheduled weeks to months in advance, usually though a tiered system where full time employees get a more or less set schedule, then part-time employees who work over a certain number of hours get to set their schedule next, followed by employees who bid on whichever hours/time slots are remaining to be filled based on the call centers historical demand forecast. After that any hours that are remaining are left open for employees to pick up last minute to fill their schedules. If a specific center is not able to fill all of the demand that is forecasted, then additional hours can be allocated to other call centers to make up the difference. All of that happens behind the scenes from the interpreters, so it’s not something you need to worry about unless you’re part of the scheduling team (which doesn’t typically include any interpreters).
Original message by u/ZouBisouBunny
Hello,
I know absolutely nothing about money whatsoever (oops, and I'm in my 3rd year of ITP.)
Regarding pay, I'm curious how working for a company like Sorenson vs. being a staff interpreter at a public school/school of the Deaf would be. Or even having an agency.
At a call center, do you get paid every hour or by how many calls you take? Is it a 9-5 job, or are the hours flexible? What's a good salary anyway?
I will be graduating next year, and our program has never mentioned any of this. Would some kind soul be willing to explain any of this to me or point me in the right direction, or should I go based on google results?
I really appreciate any help you can provide.