A Day in the Life of a Resource Manager

This post marks the next installment of our “A Day in the Life” series, where we drop in on some of Argos Multilingual’s most prominent personalities to see what they’re up to. Today’s visit is to Anna Wilk, who manages the Resource department.

Please tell us a little about your background and how you found your way to Argos.

Anna Wilk: I was a university graduate looking for an interesting job, and I was lucky enough to get a job at Argos and stay until today. I worked as a project manager (PM) for some years and then moved on to resource work. Those were ancient times – we were tracking projects in Excel, getting client feedback on paper by fax, and some translators would pop into the office to bring translations on floppy disks!

What does your role usually involve?

AW: I’m overseeing the resource department’s work, making sure we work towards meeting the goals set for our team, making sure we have the right resources for the work we do and that they fit the budgets set for projects, supporting PMs in daily work, maintaining relationships with our partners, monitoring their quality and trying to get the best pricing offers from them. Basically, anything related to external suppliers who work for Argos.

What does a normal day’s schedule look like?

AW: Usually it starts slowly in the morning, so I have time to focus on tasks that require time, concentration, and close attention. Then, it usually gets crazy with production requests, issues to deal with from suppliers, requests from potential clients, calls, and internal consultations.

What’s a common question you get from clients/end users?

AW: There are a few:

Could you please recommend suppliers for a new account in the machinery sector for 20 languages?
What would be the buy rates for 30 languages in the legal sector?
The supplier is late with the job/not responding to emails, could you help by contacting them and checking the situation?
The supplier left serious errors in the final translation, can you talk to them to improve quality or propose an alternative supplier?

What’s the most interesting thing you’re working on at the moment?

AW: Well, it’s very difficult to get bored at Argos, as there is always something new and challenging to work on. Right now, our team is expanding the data in the clinical research industry as well as trying to gain more knowledge in natural language understanding in order to serve new projects.