Interpreter Resume Examples, Job Description & Skills

What to Highlight in an Interpreter Resume

Interpreters are crucial to so many industries, from international diplomacy to education. TO show that you’re ready to fill such an important role, you’ll need to highlight the right things in your resume to impress the hiring manager or recruiter. 

Here are some things you should highlight in your resume:

• The language you speak 
• The type of interpretation services you provide 
• Industry such as medical interpretation in healthcare  or education 
• Core competencies

Structure of an Interpreter Resume

The structure of your interpreter resume will depend on the type of resume format you choose. Here’s a guide to the three kinds of resumes you can choose:

• Chronological: Chronological resumes focus on employment history.
• Functional: Functional resumes focus on skills.
• Combination: Combination resumes showcase both skills and experience.

Header

Once you have chosen your resume format, you should include a resume header. Your resume header contains all of your contact information, helping the hiring manager contact you with application updates. In this section, you should include:

If you have lots of experience as an interpreter, then you can also provide a link to a professional networking site. This is a good opportunity to provide the hiring manager with more information about your career and the types of clients or industries you worked with.

Resume summary

A resume summary is your opportunity to introduce yourself to the hiring manager. This two to three-sentence section summarizes your overall resume. This section is designed to hook the hiring manager or recruiter.

To do this, you can include striking information such as specialist skills or qualifications. You can also include your total years of experience in this section.

If you don’t have any experience in an interpreter position, then you can use a resume objective. A resume objective is similar in length but instead explains your career goals. You can explain how this role aligns with your career targets and why you’re the ideal candidate.

Skills

If you choose a functional resume format, then your skills section is essential. Regardless of the type of resume you choose, you should ensure you include the right skills.

This section should contain a mixture of both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are role-specific, whereas soft skills are transferable across multiple industries.

If you can’t think of the right interpreter skills that align with your job application, then consider using some of these bullet points:

Work history

Depending on the role and the type of resume you choose, the work experience section might be the most important part. You should try to only include experience where you’ve translated or interpreted foreign languages to avoid information redundancies.

If you’ve previously had interpreter jobs, then you should list your experience in reverse chronological order, starting from the most recent example. You should also include brief bullet points that summarize your primary responsibilities while working.

If you have many years of relevant experience as a professional interpreter, then try and keep to the most recent five years of experience to avoid your resume becoming too long.

Education

To become an interpreter, you’ll need to prove you’re bilingual and fluent in your target language. You can also study for a bachelor’s degree in the same language and build up your experience as a freelance translator.

In this section, you should include the following information: