Do not worry if you are not a fan of committing to remote jobs wherein you would have to attend to dozens of sales calls for hours throughout the day. On the other hand, who does not wish to have a remote job that needs little to no previous work experience and offers flexible work timings? If all of this sounds like a fantasy created out of nowhere, then, mind you, it is not. You can pursue to become a transcriptionist as your full-fledged career or simply a money-making side gig. The job is pretty simple; listen carefully to an audio or video file and produce them in a written form. Today’s topic- How to become a transcriptionist?
As a transcriptionist, one is expected to have brilliant listening skills and a stellar command of the English language so that you could efficiently and smoothly produce written records of audio or video-based interviews, conversations, lectures, and programs, along with giving accessibility to those who are deaf or hearing-impaired. Transcriptionists have to do their job in a wide variety of workplace environments ranging from courthouses, news agencies, and medical facilities to educational institutions, corporate meetings, industry-specific conferences, and of course, at the comfort of your homes. Along with the requirement of some minimum qualifications and many prerequisite skills, transcription-related training and certifications give you an edge over the others (though not all firms consider your certificates). Most transcription jobs do not restrict you to work within a certain set of hours and offer a lot of flexibility. Moreover, one can look for contractual transcriptionist gigs to get paid by the amount of work you do rather than opting for a job that offers a specific monthly salary. So, if you are looking all over the Internet at becoming a transcriptionist, this comprehensive article would prove to be the guiding force for you.
Types of Transcriptionists
There is a wide range of transcriptionists out there in the market. However, the transcription industry is typically divided into the following categories:
- General Transcriptions: Experts often advise that beginners start looking for jobs in this category as it requires no prior experience, training, or formal education and involves producing brief and to-the-point transcripts for multiple purposes from audio or video files. One could be tasked with transcribing business meetings, conference speeches, podcasts, interviews of different personalities, and discussions during marketing focus groups and lectures at colleges. Not only this, but general transcriptions offer some other interesting gigs, such as transcribing real-time captions for live sports/cultural events and producing closed captions for television and OTT programs and movies.
- Legal Transcriptions: The primary responsibility of a legal transcriptionist is to transcribe a wide variety of legal stuff ranging from court proceedings, talks held between clients and attorneys, depositions and trials to victim interviews, police interrogations, and undercover law enforcement recordings. This requires an extremely efficient and specialized transcriptionist who is acquainted with legal systems, procedures, and other judicial terminologies. Moreover, certain certification or license is required to step up your career as a legal transcriptionist.
- Medical Transcriptions: Not only are you required to possess an in-depth understanding of medical procedures, medical terminology, healthcare documentation, and anatomy, but medical transcription jobs may also require some sort of certification, license, or previous work experience as per your past employees and your job profile. As you would be constantly involved in and around medical facilities, you would be assigned to transcribe everything from consultation amongst doctors and conversations between Emergency Medical Services to the discussion within the medical staff during major operations and surgeries and talks between the doctor and the patient.
- Conference & Events Transcriptions: This category is considered to be a jackpot for all the transcriptionists out there as it offers a handsome salary and is quite a huge industry in itself wherein one is assigned to transcribe panel discussions, presentations, debates, and Question and Answer sessions at large conferences and events.
- Focus Group Transcriptions: In simpler terms, a focus group is a bunch of sample subjects who represent a larger population interviewed for various purposes such as political analysis, market research, etc. A lot of companies and political organizations give a lot of emphasis on focus group transcriptions. Herein, transcriptionists are tasked with transcribing the debates and deliberations held among the focus group, which can later be analyzed and used by those businesses and other organizations.
- Academic Transcriptions: Academic transcriptionists specialize in producing transcripts of discussions between researchers and/or students, ongoing university lectures, and various kinds of talks between lab faculty and students.
- Interview Transcriptions: Demanding accurate transcriptions, Interview Transcriptionist jobs are very much sought after by medium and large-scale businesses, news media, recruitment agencies as well as even by law enforcement organizations and investigators.
- Business Transcriptions: Corporate professionals are aware of the significance of minutes of both in-person and virtual meetings as they can be recollected at any point of time later on. Thus, business transcriptionists are in high demand to transcribe board meetings, important work-related discussions, and interviews with clients and employees.
How Much Do Transcriptionists Earn?
Remuneration for a transcriptionist depends on many factors, such as your skills, your transcribing speed, the nature of your work, your company’s reputation, and your prior work experience.
Factoring that you possess the required qualifications, equipment, skills, and certification, you can make a substantial amount of money working as a transcriptionist in the US. As per the stats verified by Payscale, a transcriptionist makes an average of $16.33 in an hour, though beginners involved in general online transcription are not likely to earn more than $10 per hour. However, as you become more experienced, enhance your transcribing skills and become competent enough for higher-paid specialties, one could earn a staggering $25 an hour.
According to ZipRecruiter, transcriptionists doing work-from-home make somewhere between $27,500 and $78,000 annually with a median annual salary of about $58,411.
Estimating the hourly rate of online transcriptionists at $14.78, Indeed.com projects that the hourly pay can vary anywhere between $13.78 and $20.25, depending upon the nature of transcriptions.
One must also note the following points while exploring the Payscale of transcriptionists:
- In some rare cases, the hourly wage for specialized transcriptions could surpass $75. It mainly pertains to instances of transliteration and is available in medical, legal, and technical transcription services.
- Many firms tend to pay their freelance transcribers based on audio hour, implying that transcribing an hour’s worth of audio will be directly proportional to your hourly pay.
- Seasoned transcriptionists can easily make somewhere between $45 to $50 per audio hour.
Qualifications to Become a Transcriptionist
Following are some of the basic minimum criteria that may be required to become a general transcriptionist (depending on your company/hiring agency):
- High school degree
- Certification from the American Association of Electronic Reporters & Transcribers or any other similar well-reputed, recognized institution.
- Excellent knowledge of computers and transcription software.
To become a medical, legal, or technical transcriptionist, you would require a specialized certificate from some reputable organizations. For instance, medical transcriptionists need to have the Certified Medical Transcriptionist certification to get employed.
In some cases wherein the firms assign you as a general transcriptionist, you do not need these certifications. However, suppose you have graduated from high school. In that case, you might have to appear for an online test to qualify for the job.
Requirements To Get Started As A Transcriptionist
Although at first glance, listening to an audio/video recording and typing what you hear sounds like a cakewalk of a task, it is far more physically and mentally demanding and tiring than what you might think. The game does not end at having necessary equipment as there are a bunch of skills that you should master before even considering yourself worthy enough of landing a high-paying transcriptionist job.
Skills
- Brilliant Listening Abilities: There is a load of things that you need to manage while listening to audio/video files for transcribing, like decipher audio with background noises, heavy accents, and multiple speakers.
- Typing Precision: A 65 to 75 words per minute is the typing speed that you should aspire to maintain with a lot of focus and accuracy, though, after a certain period, you must aim for a speed somewhere between 75 to 90 words per minute. Perseverance and constant practice would eventually help you in mastering the art of transcribing.
- Stellar Command Over The English Language: You must possess top-notch English language skills ranging from vocabulary and grammar to spelling and punctuation. Moreover, you should have pretty good proofreading skills. Later on, you would require a written copy to check and rectify the errors.
- Knowledge regarding Microsoft Word and other transcribing software.
- Other skill set such as proofreading, editing, and grammar checking.
- Effective project completion skills.
- Brilliant time management skills are vital in keeping on a par with the project deadlines.
- Patience: As you would be required to listen to the same audio repeatedly to transcribe word for word, patience is the key in this line of work. Moreover, one has to be punctual and detail-oriented while doing your job.
Equipment
Based on the kind of work you sign up for and the nature of your employer, you would require a certain set of equipment to work from home as a transcriptionist:
- A moderately new computer that functions just fine.
- A reliable, non-erratic Internet connection with a download speed of about 10 Mbps (Megabits per second).
- Almost every entry-level job in a transcription company would ask you to work on their recommended software that generally involves a quick installation along with easy-to-understand functionality.
- Most of the businesses also need you to have Microsoft Word on your system.
- Also, your employer would most likely require you to have Google Chrome on your computer to test their program.
- You must also possess a decent pair of headphones to listen to the audio for transcription purposes.
- Some transcription companies that are more reputed in the industry would even permit you to have a separate transcription software along with its compatible foot pedal for controlling audio playback.
- Suppose you wish to substantially reduce your transcription time. In that case, experts suggest that you should download transcription software like the free version Express Scribe to make your job much easier. Moreover, you could even opt to upgrade Express Scribe to its professional version for no more than $100.
- Some companies also want their transcriptionists to type out common phrases and words. Therefore, they recommend using some sort of text expander software.
- Suppose this transcribing job is more than just a side gig for you career-wise. In that case, we suggest investing in other crucial equipment such as a high-end mechanical keyboard and a decent set of dual monitors that would prove to give a much higher return on investment and make your transcribing work a cakewalk.
How to Become a Transcriptionist: Pivotal Steps
Following are some of the most important stages if you are wondering how to follow transcribing as either a full-fledged career or just a lucrative side gig:
- Determining Your Interest Level Towards The Nature of The Job
Before hopping onto the path of the transcription industry, you must have some sort of clarity regarding your career plans, such as:
- You must be sure about your dedication level to the job whether you would work full-time or prefer to handle it as a part-time one.
- You must know beforehand if you are simply interested in producing written records of a corporate firm’s business meetings or specialization as a legal or medical transcriptionist or simply some general transcription work such as making transcripts of a blogger’s podcasts.
- You should also be clear if you wish to formally work for an employer who provides you with transcription from work time to time or whether you would be more comfortable and efficient working as a freelance transcriptionist.
Your answers to the questions above would most probably guide you to the right career pathway.
- Enhancing Your Transcribing Skills And Getting Advanced Accreditations
It is undeniable that the time and effort you devote to practicing your transcribing skills are directly proportional to your overall speed and precision. Therefore, the faster you would be able to convert an audio file into a written copy, the quicker and easier it would be for you to earn a quick buck per hour.
Moreover, you should explore your local community colleges for transcription-related certification programs or other advanced accreditations that you might want to pursue to qualify as a medical or legal transcriptionist.
- Preparing, Organizing and Revamping Your Résumé
You must be ensure preparing and updating your résumé the moment you earn your formal transcription license or other related accreditations. However, suppose you decide not to go for a formal training period. In that case, you should accordingly revamp your CV to emphasize holistic skills such as stellar listening abilities or super fast typing speed.
- Create a LinkedIn Profile as Transcriptionist
Every player of the organized employment sector knows that a decent, well-maintained LinkedIn profile can do miracles if you wish to pursue your career as a professional transcriptionist. A platform that claims to guarantee a job to one person every 10 seconds across the globe, LinkedIn is an amazing place to demonstrate your profile and relevant certifications as an aspiring (or even an experienced) transcriptionist. In addition, you should seek recommendations and references from the individuals and/or companies for whom you had successfully worked as a transcriptionist in the initial stages of your professional life.
- Applying To Entry Level Transcription Jobs
If you have just begun your journey as a transcriptionist, getting work from transcription to outsource company is much easier for you than attempting to prove yourself as a jack of all trades freelancer.
As possession of a transcriptionist certification does not always indicate that you have become a transcribing expert, going for the entry-level transcriptionist jobs is more likely helpful in shaping your career pathway as a proficient transcriptionist. This is because entry-level transcription jobs give you the relevant opportunity and ample scope to polish your skills and do away with your weaknesses.
- Moving Up The Ladder for Better Payscale After Gaining Work Experience
You must not hesitate even for a second to hunt for higher-paying transcribing gigs when you have gained some fairly decent amount of work experience. Higher typing speed with more precision is a feather in your cap, and you should know how to use it to your benefit.
While on the one hand, you could make efficient and smart use of Upwork or Freelancer.com for exploring work-from-home transcription jobs. On the other hand, you could go for reputed companies such as Allegis Transcription and Transcription Outsourcing LLC that are known to hire seasoned transcriptionists.
Moreover, a less used but highly beneficial method to land upon a high-paying transcription gig is to develop a personalized webpage to maintain and organize your independent transcription business along with exhibiting your top-notch services. You should then contact potential clients such as podcasters, legal firms, etc., to get transcription-related work assignments directly.
- Renewing Your Certifications
Timely renewal of certifications is indispensable in your transcribing career. In some instances (such as that of a medical transcriptionist), you would have to renew your certificate right after the 12 month training period. However, speaking in general terms, as a transcriptionist, you are required to new your American Association of Electronic Reporters and Transcribers (AAERT) certification every three years.
Moreover, insider experts advise that holding proper and well-renowned certifications is instrumental in office-related issues such as promotion and other incentives when working as a full-time transcriptionist. Not only this, but proper transcriptionist certifications also play an extremely crucial role while switching jobs or pursuing your career as a freelance transcriptionist.
Transcription-Related Career Options
Do you think your transcribing journey would become stagnant if you pursue this vocation? Let us stop you right there because you can choose not to do just transcriptions for the rest of your life. Following are some other high paying roles you can take up if you have become an adept transcriptionist:
- Transcription Proofreader: The moment you manage to have a decent bunch of certifications and fair to middling work experience, you can choose to become a transcription proofreader wherein you would be assigned proofread transcripts and look for grammatical flaws, spelling mistakes, and other kinds of errors. While the hourly median pay for transcription proofreaders is $15.50, their annual median wage is around $53,000. It could even go higher depending upon your skill-set and experience.
- Transcription Editor: When you become confident in calling yourself an expert transcriptionist, you could opt to work as a transcription editor tasked with editing transcripts to make them concise by omitting unnecessary or extra details. Depending upon the working location, transcription editors can make a massive $51,260 or more monthly.
Conclusion:
Thus, it must be clear by now that most of the transcription companies and sites offering higher Payscale look for those transcriptionists who can commit to first-rate work along with utmost precision and a minimal amount of time taken; all of this makes transcriptionist one of the most sought after remote jobs for beginners who aspire to learn new a set of skills and master them in a matter of few months.
As the work from home aspect of transcribing primarily involves converting YouTube video files, podcasts, and audio recording into typed-out transcript reports, you must be prepared for spending plenty of time with your headphones on and your eyes glued to the computer screen. However, the result is quite rewarding, and you could make a handsome amount of money doing transcription work. Furthermore, industry experts know for a fact that the field of transcription has a pretty promising future with a lot of potentials at hand. Therefore, you should not waste time overthinking and start working as an online transcriptionist.
