Subtitler / Captioner Resume Examples & Writing Guide
A subtitler resume gets work when the vendor manager can see your language pairs, how many minutes of content you deliver a week, which style guides and reading-speed rules you work to, and your QC pass rate. Below is a full sample plus rates guidance, software lists and a beginner version.
Subtitler resume example (Spanish to English, streaming and documentary)
This sample works for localization vendors on streaming series, documentary and corporate content. Vendor names are invented and client titles are described generically, which is normal in this field because of confidentiality agreements.
Mireia Costa
Subtitler & Captioner (ES>EN, EN SDH)
Austin, TX (remote) · (512) 555-0132 · mireia.costa.subs@email.com · Spanish (native), English (native-level), Catalan (fluent)
Summary
Subtitler and captioner with 7 years in audiovisual localization. Delivers 320 to 400 minutes of finished subtitles a week across Spanish to English translation, English SDH captioning and quality control. Works to platform style guides at 17 to 20 characters per second, spots from scratch, and holds a 98% first-pass QC acceptance rate across 900+ episodes.
Experience
Senior Subtitler and QC Linguist (freelance) · Four localization vendors serving streaming platforms and broadcasters
Jan 2021 – Present
- Deliver 320 to 400 finished minutes a week: Spanish to English subtitle translation, English SDH captioning and QC of other linguists' files.
- Spot and time from scratch on 60% of assignments, working to reading speeds of 17 to 20 characters per second and a 42-character line limit depending on the platform guide.
- Completed 900+ episodes and 60 feature-length titles with a 98% first-pass QC acceptance rate; rework requests average under 2 per 100 files.
- QC 40 to 60 files a month from other linguists, checking timing, reading speed, line breaks, character limits, on-screen text handling and glossary compliance.
- Handle SDH conventions for a deaf and hard of hearing audience: speaker identification, sound effects, music cues and off-screen dialogue markers.
- Deliver in SRT, WebVTT, TTML and IMSC, and work in EZTitles, Ooona and Subtitle Edit, plus two proprietary browser-based platforms.
- Built a 1,400-term glossary and style memo for a long-running series, cutting continuity queries across the 6-linguist team by about half.
Subtitling and Captioning Editor · Lone Star Media Services (post-production and localization house), Austin, TX
Mar 2018 – Jan 2021
- Edited machine-generated captions for accuracy, timing and readability on 25 to 35 hours of corporate and educational content a month.
- Captioned live and recorded webinars and lecture content, meeting accessibility requirements for university and government clients.
- Conformed subtitle files to new edits and versions, handling 200+ reconform jobs a year without timing drift.
- Trained 4 junior editors on line breaking, reading speed and the difference between a subtitle and a transcript.
Translator (ES>EN) · Freelance, direct clients and agencies
Sep 2016 – Mar 2018
- Translated roughly 300,000 words a year of marketing, legal and technical content with CAT tool support.
- Moved into audiovisual work after captioning a 12-episode documentary series and finding the timing and condensation side more interesting than page translation.
Education
Master of Arts, Translation and Interpreting
Guadalupe International University, Austin, TX, 2016
Bachelor of Arts, English Philology
Universitat de Ponent, Spain, 2014
Certifications
- American Translators Association certified translator, Spanish into English, 2020
- Platform-specific subtitling qualification tests passed for 3 streaming vendors
- Accessibility captioning training (WCAG and FCC caption quality requirements), 2023
Skills
What a localization vendor manager checks first
Subtitling work is assigned in batches by people managing deadlines across dozens of freelancers. Your resume needs to answer their scheduling questions immediately.
- Language pair and direction, with your native language stated. Subtitling almost always works into your strongest language, and a vendor will not guess.
- Capacity. Minutes of finished subtitle a week or a day. That is the unit this industry schedules in, not words or hours.
- Quality history. First-pass QC acceptance rate, rework requests, whether you have passed platform qualification tests. Vendors track this internally and expect you to know yours.
- Technical range. Whether you spot from scratch or only translate a template, which tools you own or can access, and which delivery formats you can produce.
“Minutes a week and a QC score. Those two numbers decide whether someone goes on my roster. Plenty of applicants tell me they love film and have excellent language skills, but I schedule by capacity and I get audited on quality, so that is what I need on the page.”
Subtitler resume summary examples
Two or three lines: pair, content types, weekly capacity, quality, tools.
Subtitler with 7 years in audiovisual localization, delivering 320 to 400 finished minutes a week in Spanish to English translation and English SDH. Spots from scratch, works to 17 to 20 characters per second depending on the platform guide, and holds a 98% first-pass QC acceptance rate across 900+ episodes.
Captioner with 5 years producing English closed captions and SDH for broadcast, streaming and education. Handles 25 to 35 hours a month of recorded content, works to FCC caption quality requirements and WCAG guidance, and delivers in SRT, WebVTT and TTML.
Subtitle QC linguist reviewing 60 to 80 files a month for timing, reading speed, segmentation, glossary compliance and on-screen text handling. Built the style memo and 1,400-term glossary for a long-running series, cutting continuity queries across a 6-linguist team by about half.
Certified translator of 4 years moving into subtitling. Completed a subtitling course covering spotting, reading speed and segmentation, has delivered 40 hours of practice files reviewed by a working subtitler, and works in Subtitle Edit and Ooona. Translates roughly 300,000 words a year in marketing and technical content.
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Subtitling work written as bullets
The craft of subtitling is invisible unless you name it. Say what constraints you worked inside and what quality you delivered.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Translated subtitles for TV and film. | Delivered 320 to 400 finished minutes a week of Spanish to English subtitle translation across streaming series, documentary and feature content. |
| Made sure subtitles were timed correctly. | Spotted and timed from scratch on 60% of assignments, working to 17 to 20 characters per second and a 42-character line limit per the platform guide. |
| Produced high-quality work. | Held a 98% first-pass QC acceptance rate across 900+ episodes, with rework requests under 2 per 100 files. |
| Reviewed other people's subtitles. | QC'd 40 to 60 files a month for timing, reading speed, line breaks, on-screen text handling and glossary compliance, with written feedback to each linguist. |
| Created captions for hearing-impaired viewers. | Produced English SDH with speaker identification, sound effects, music cues and off-screen dialogue markers to platform and accessibility requirements. |
| Used subtitling software. | Worked in EZTitles, Ooona and Subtitle Edit plus two proprietary browser platforms, delivering SRT, WebVTT, TTML and IMSC. |
| Kept terminology consistent. | Built a 1,400-term glossary and style memo for a long-running series, cutting continuity queries across the 6-linguist team by about half. |
| Fixed automatic captions. | Post-edited machine-generated captions on 25 to 35 hours a month, correcting speaker attribution, punctuation, timing drift and reading speed. |
Skills, software and delivery formats
Vendors filter on tools and formats before they read anything else. Be exact and separate what you own from what you have used.
- Craft: spotting and timing, reading speed management, condensation without losing meaning, line breaking and segmentation, shot-change respect, on-screen text and forced narrative handling, dialect and register decisions.
- SDH and accessibility: speaker identification, sound effect and music description, off-screen markers, positioning, and the caption quality requirements that apply to broadcast in the US.
- Software: EZTitles, Ooona, Subtitle Edit, Aegisub, WinCAPS, Subtitle Next, plus the proprietary browser-based tools used by major platforms. Say which you own a license for.
- Formats: SRT, WebVTT, TTML and IMSC, STL, SCC and CAP. Knowing the difference between a broadcast and a streaming delivery format is a real skill worth listing.
- Related work: transcription, template creation, machine transcript post-editing, reconform and versioning, dubbing script adaptation if you do it, audio description if you have trained in it.
- Language: your pair and direction with honest levels, plus any subject specialisms such as medical, legal, sport or reality formats.
How subtitling work is priced and scheduled
Understanding the commercial side helps you write the resume, because it tells you which numbers vendors actually care about. Rates vary widely by language pair, content type and region, so treat any figure you see online as a starting point for your own research.
- Work is usually priced per runtime minute of content, not per word or per hour, and the rate differs between translation with a template, translation with spotting, SDH captioning and QC.
- Your effective hourly rate depends on how many finished minutes you can produce per working hour, which is why capacity belongs on the resume.
- Turnaround expectations are short. Being explicit about your availability, time zone and whether you take weekend rush work makes you easier to schedule.
- Most platform work reaches freelancers through localization vendors rather than directly, and each vendor runs its own qualification test. Mention which tests you have passed.
- Quality scores follow you. Vendors share internal ratings between projects, so a first-pass acceptance rate is a genuine asset once you can quote it.
- Keep a personal record of minutes delivered, episode counts and rework requests. Nobody will hand you those numbers, and you cannot write this resume well without them.
Getting your first subtitling work
Subtitling is easier to enter than most language careers because demand for accessibility and localization keeps rising. Vendors do test you before assigning work, so preparation matters more than contacts.
- 1Learn spotting properly. Translators who can only fill a template earn less and get less work than those who can time from scratch.
- 2Take a structured subtitling course or work through a platform style guide until you can quote its reading speed, line and character limits from memory.
- 3Build practice files: subtitle 10 hours of publicly available content, then have a working subtitler review a sample and note what they corrected.
- 4Install and learn one professional tool. Subtitle Edit is free and widely used, and Ooona and EZTitles are common in vendor workflows.
- 5Apply to localization vendors rather than platforms directly, and expect an unpaid qualification test of 5 to 15 minutes of content.
- 6For English captioning work, look at accessibility clients too: universities, government, conferences and corporate video all need captions and are less competitive than entertainment.
Certified Spanish to English translator of 4 years moving into audiovisual work. Completed a subtitling course covering spotting, reading speed and segmentation, delivered 40 hours of practice files reviewed by a working subtitler, and works in Subtitle Edit and Ooona. Available for vendor qualification tests immediately.
Editor and transcriptionist seeking captioning work. Transcribed 600+ hours of interview and lecture audio at 99% accuracy, and has captioned 80 hours of university lecture content to WCAG guidance in WebVTT. Fast, accurate typist with strong punctuation and speaker attribution discipline, available for accessibility and corporate projects.
Frequently asked questions
What is a subtitling job?
Subtitlers turn spoken dialogue into timed text on screen. That means spotting where each subtitle starts and ends, condensing speech so it can be read at a set reading speed, breaking lines so they scan naturally, and delivering a file in the format the client needs. Captioning adds sound and speaker information for deaf and hard of hearing viewers.
How do I write a subtitler resume?
Lead with your language pair and direction, your weekly capacity in finished minutes and your QC pass rate. Then give bullets naming content types, reading speed and character limits you work to, software and delivery formats. Describe clients generically if you are under a confidentiality agreement. One page.
What skills do you need to be a subtitler?
Excellent writing in your target language, spotting and timing, condensation without losing meaning, line breaking and segmentation, familiarity with platform style guides and reading speed rules, SDH conventions, one professional subtitling tool, and the common delivery formats such as SRT, WebVTT and TTML.
How are subtitling rates calculated?
Usually per runtime minute of content rather than per word, with different rates for template translation, translation with spotting, SDH captioning and QC. Rates vary a lot by language pair, content type and region, so research current market rates for your own pair rather than relying on a single published figure.
How do I get subtitling work with no experience?
Learn to spot rather than only fill templates, take a structured course, and build practice files on publicly available content reviewed by a working subtitler. Then apply to localization vendors, expecting an unpaid qualification test. English captioning for universities, conferences and corporate clients is a less competitive entry point.
Can I put streaming platform titles on my resume?
Only if your agreement allows it, and often it does not. Describe the work generically instead, for example "a long-running crime drama for a major streaming platform, 42 episodes". Vendor managers understand this convention and view listing confidential titles as a warning sign.
What is the difference between subtitling and captioning?
Subtitling generally means rendering dialogue as text, often translated into another language, for viewers who can hear the audio. Captioning, especially SDH, is written for deaf and hard of hearing viewers and includes speaker identification, sound effects and music cues. Many jobs ask for both, so say which you do.
How long should a subtitler resume be?
One page. Capacity, quality, tools and formats matter far more than a long history. If you have worked through many vendors, group them as one freelance entry with the content types and totals rather than listing each contract separately.
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How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.