In the translatorial occupations, despite recently increasing efforts toward professionalisation, elite literary translators still seem to cultivate a counter-professionalisation ethos to secure their status. The author uses findings from an interview-based study in Israel to discuss the counter-professionalisation trend in the field of translatorial occupations at large. Sela-Sheffy examines the effect of an anti-professionalisation ethos on the self-perception of non-elite practitioners (commercial and technical translators, non-elite literary translators, subtitlers, conference and community interpreters). She argues that this ethos determines the prestige scale in this occupational field, and thus has crucial impact on shaping the relations between elite and non-elite manpower in it. While top literary translators draw on it for their sense of distinction and privileges, for the largest population of non-elite translators, lacking a sense of personal agency and cultural role, this ethos serves as a buffer to capitalising on alternative resources that are usually attached to professionalism.