Sigma Technologies Avis 7

After clicking on a very promising‑sounding LinkedIn ad, I received an email with instructions for some “testing.” Fantastic, I thought — finally something interesting. Instead, I spent my time heroically transcribing Romanian and English audio clips like a budget speech‑to‑text engine.
Then I reached the Translation Test… and simply froze.
In all my years as a linguist, I have never encountered anything as gloriously nonsensical as their translation guideline. Behold this masterpiece of logic:

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”Example
Source language: English (United States)
Language being tested: Spanish (Spain)
Source text: Mrs. Jones called me in the morning.
Correct:
La Sra. Rodríguez me llamó por la mañana.
Explanation: The American surname must be magically transformed into a Spanish one, because apparently Spanish readers will spontaneously combust if exposed to “Jones.”
Incorrect:
La Sra. Jones me llamó por la mañana.
Explanation: “Jones” is not a Spanish surname, and therefore must be banished for cultural purity reasons."
-----

I mean… seriously? Who came up with this botchery? Who approved it? Who looked at this and said, “Yes, this is exactly how translation works”?
Naturally, I emailed them for clarification — and naturally, I have never heard back. Amazing.

I applied for a data collection project, where we were supposed to record 500 audio prompts for AI training purposes and the compensation would have been 70 Euro. The low compensation was already a red flag, but I decided to continue for the sake of curiosity. Then we were invited to attend a kick-off session, where they gave us the basics and a soft deadline of 5 days to complete the project. Long story short: 2 days in, I'm working on it and I get kicked out of the system after recording 75 audio files. After I asked them to explain and if I was going to be compensated, they replied: "Your colleagues were very fast and there are no more audios available. I'm sorry.". This is beyond ridiculous, I invested time in this, helped them to train their AI, and all I got in exchange was rudeness and zero money. If they contact you, or if you see their job advertisements on LinkedIn, I strongly encourage you to avoid them, and I hope that more people who had a similar experience will speak up about their shady data collection methods.

They send an assessment, you'll have to send them your documents by email, and even attend an online meeting, show your face. Only after all that process will they send you the proposal letter. Which is for transcribing cents of dollars for the minute of the audio you are transcribing. Very dishonest not to show the pay rate before you candidate for the job. Don't lose your time!

The pay rate is very low. You won't be able to earn more than $5/hr even with your top speed. Average earnings are $2-3 per hour.
The customer support and project manager are very rude, no professionalism.

Fortuitously, when I started doing their testing process to get the job they advertised as a 'British English' speaker (whatever that's supposed to mean), it immediately became obvious that they didn't have a clue about what they wanted, asking for an unpaid transcription of an audio file with just American and Australian speakers. It was nice to get a warning signal so early, saving time, although they did manage to get my CV and various other personal details earlier in the application process.

Italian Linguistic Projects - after having submitted the application I receive a test by email which takes a fair amount of time to complete.

Nobody ever answered back after months, please don't waste your time

Non-payment after a completed voice recording project. They use you and then ditch you. Emails are not answered. Obviously, not working for them again despite their regular emails and invitations to more projects. Stay away if your are a freelancer.