TermCoord at the Virtual 2020 EU Job Fair

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Job Fair 2020

The EU Job Fair took place from 8th to 12th June. Organised by the Trainees’ Careers Subcommittee, the Job Fair aims to bring the approximately 900 trainees from the EU institutions in contact with potential employers. Speakers from various institutions were invited to present at daily events, with each presentation being followed by a Q&A session. Due to the extraordinary situation this year, the entire Job Fair took place virtually through videoconferencing.

TermCoord was invited to present at the Job Fair, having appeared in the Committee’s survey as an interesting potential employer for EU trainees. This shows that there is a keen interest in terminology and that the career of terminologist is an attractive professional pathway.

On 9th June, TermCoord’s Head of Unit Rodolfo Maslias and Communication Trainees Lara Karlović and Janna Mack held a half-hour long presentation to over 100 trainees. Rodolfo Maslias started the presentation with a general overview of the importance of terminology and how TermCoord fits into the general organisation of the European Parliament. This was followed by an explanation of TermCoord’s projects and activities, including IATE, the language trainees’ projects and the European Parliament’s Terminology portal EurTerm.

Lara Karlović then continued the presentation by showing TermCoord’s website termcoord.eu. Lara focused in particular on the collection of theses, the regular IATE Term of the Week feature, and the interviews with terminologists. The attendees were then encouraged to visit the site themselves and were invited to send their theses, write articles, or conduct interviews with linguists or terminologists they know.

For the final part of the presentation, Janna Mack introduced the ‘Terminology without Borders’ website, yourterm.org. She showcased its five projects and highlighted the multilingual resources available for each of the projects, paying particular attention to the resources on the topic of Covid-19. Janna also showed TermCoord’s four social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn), inviting attendees to connect with the unit on social media.

The presentation ended with a Q&A session. Trainees’ were especially interested in how to start the career-path to becoming a terminologist and asked relevant questions, including what the typical workday of a terminologist looks like. The high attendee number and the nature of the questions evidenced the growing awareness of the importance of terminology and the terminology profession.


Janna Mack pictureWritten by Janna Mack. From Luxembourg, she has degrees in Linguistics, Education, and Translation from Glasgow University.