My journey with Hansem Vietnam probably started on a beautiful afternoon when I first came to the company for the job interview with Director Kim. The view of a spacious hallway filled with greenery since then has become my first memory at Hansem. Fast forward plenty of months later, next to the plant vases appeared a lovely bookshelf with the staff’s excitement. Shortly before, Director Kim had introduced a new reading challenge within the company. Hence, an in-office library was built and then came a reading contest.

Scripted by
Tue Nguyen

It got everyone excited. And “This is a fantastic idea!” was the thought that crossed people’s minds when Director Kim announced the challenge. The little library brought a new atmosphere to the office. It brought joyfulness to the room as we shared about the books we would like to read and discussed the requirements of the reading contest.

The contest was optional, but it had incentives. In half a year, one could read around six books – one book per month and later produced a short-essay review about what they learned from each of the readings. There was a scoring system, and evaluation was based on the reviews and critique articles written by the book borrowers. The scores one earned from reading books will be calculated into the semi-annual assessment result. Generally, the reading is like a bonus point that could somewhat affect promotion progress. This exciting idea lighted up many faces in the office. I, myself, got a big surprise to think about how lucky I was to find a company with such a significant culture right after my graduation.

The reading challenge aims at helping employees to grow through reading. The book types are mainly about personal development, productivity, leadership skills, and other non-fiction genres. Director Kim specially chose some of the books, and the staff recommended some. It is needless to say more about the unlimited advantages of reading. As we are working in the localization industry, which is rapidly evolving, books are an excellent source for up-to-date information and popular trends. Not only helping readers to gain knowledge, but books also help connect people and give us chances to know a bit more about each other. Thanks to the event, I got to know that my company was a home of book lovers. Many of us even had similar reading tastes.

Shhhh!!! Reading is in session!

While Director Kim intended to use books to help his staff develop personally, I think reading has also benefited me a lot in terms of professional skills. I am currently a member of the Review team at HSVN. Honestly, working as a translator is not an easy job as it may sound. Despite being confident of my language proficiency, occasionally I still find myself at a loss to find the best sentences for my translation. It is not about simply putting the right words to the grammatically correct places in the target language. To deliver a natural and quality translation requires much more.

Reading is an applicable way for me to improve my translation skills. In the beginning days, my inflexible use of vocabulary and sentence construction made my translation sound a bit stiff and “machine-translated” at times. Even though I could learn a lot from the feedback and revisions of my seniors, I still needed to find some ways to improve my own accord. It was books that helped me to expand my vocabulary range in many fields, allow me to produce a more natural and better translation. It also offered me a place to stay unconnected with this heavily digital world. Being immersed in that world of words, I was able to find endless inspiration and grow as a competent language user day by day.

Since day one, Hansem Vietnam has impressed me by how the company dedicates to training the employees. I still remember how I got to spend a great deal of time joining various training sessions and doing practices before I became qualified for real-life projects. Now, with fun activities like the reading challenge above, I could see how far the company is ready to go to help its employees grow. Because the world keeps changing, and so does the localization industry, readiness to learning and adapting has been a trait shared among the people who work here.

My journey with Hansem Vietnam so far has been an incredible experience. The core values, management style, and company culture all fit my goals and personality very well. This company is where I could fulfill my passion for languages while thriving to create a meaningful contribution to the company. Working in a human-centric working environment like this, I am continuously given opportunities to unlock my potentials. And I think this cultural aspect of the company is one of the things that keep Hansem Vietnam going through tough times and strive for even more significant.