Home Transcriber Jobs Summary
A transcriptionist listens to an audio recording or live audio and then transforms what he hears into a text format.
When you look for home transcriber jobs, you would discover that such positions are available in many industries like legal, medical, and even marketing.
Transcription tasks require that you are a good listener, a good typist, and you possess the tools for transcribing. Transcription job vacancies are open to amateurs (of legal working age) and to more experienced professionals.
You might think there are only few transcription jobs, but you will feel surprised to discover that a lot of businesses from various industries need people to do this task for them. Transcripts also serve different purposes.
To Be Or Not To Be a Transcriptionist
Transcription per se is a simple task to perform.
Yet, once you try taking on one of the home transcriber jobs with a thought, you will just listen and write what you hear, then you would surely feel overwhelmed and probably quit faster than you imagined.
There are different files available for transcription, and not all files could have a clear and understandable audio.
The transcript you will submit should be accurate and of high quality. To determine whether this is a job that suits you, read more about what skills and other requirements they need.
If you like, you may take a short quiz to know if you and home transcriber jobs can make a good pair.
Home Or Office
Just like other online jobs, there are also transcription jobs where there are job posts that require you to work in a certain place or office other than your home.
As a freelance, part-time or full time home-based transcriber, you will most likely not get all the benefits that an office-based transcriber has. Yet, you can work in the comfort of your home and could work on your own pace.
Necessary Skills
As mentioned earlier, typing at a fast speed is one skill that will allow you to survive this job.
Figure 1 shows one question in the quiz mentioned above and it shows accurate typing (mostly 98% correct) at a speed of 45 words per minute is necessary when applying for home transcriber jobs.
Figure 1
You should always submit accurate and high quality transcripts, and to do so, you will also need to possess the following skills:
Language Skills
As you transcribe, you ensure that there are proper punctuation, vocabulary and other sentence structure elements in the transcript. You need to have good grammar skills as a professional transcriptionist.
Research Skills
You need to pair your sharp listening skills with the ability to research well. Sometimes, the audio files you will transcribe contain topics or words that you are not familiar with.
You, therefore, need to do some research on exactly what you have heard to type the word in your transcript.
Time Required
It takes time to finish any task, but with home transcriber jobs, you need to realize that you need to put in more time in transcribing. You should be realistic in your time planning and management.
Suppose they give you a 1-hour audio file to transcribe, know that this does not mean you will only spend 1 hour to finish the transcript.
You will need more than an hour to complete it. It may take even an entire day to complete the job.
While there are some jobs that you can finish within a short time, there are others that take longer than what you expect. Thus, it is important to schedule your time strategically.
Educational Background
They require no formal education to be a transcriptionist or transcriber, unless you are applying for industry-specific medical or legal transcription jobs.
An example is in Figure 2 wherein the posted medical transcriptionist vacancy is looking for a graduate of any Allied Medical course since the job will involve medical terms and concepts.
Figure 2
You may find job posts with a minimum requirement of a high school diploma, but you will have a better edge than others if you have completed a Bachelor’s Degree or a college course.
The industry or topic of audio files will determine what educational background the employer will look for.
Training And Practice
If it is only now that you take an interest in home transcriber jobs, you need to look at the job more seriously. You need to prepare yourself and know what to expect.
While age and education are less considered by many clients, your experience and awareness about transcribing will have more weight on your application.
To be ready for any transcription job application, you may search online for practice transcription files.
Go to Google, for example, and type keywords such as “practice transcribing” and you will find a lot of websites where there are available practice materials for transcribing. Use these files to practice.
You may check out videos like this one above for your transcription practice.
Tools of the Trade
The basic tools you need to transcribe are a computer (desktop or laptop) and headphones/earphones. Yet, if you want to work more effectively, consider investing on these other equipment and tools.
4. Dictionary or Thesaurus will help you spell and type words better.
6. Time Tracking Software will help you track your time and know how much time you have spent in transcribing.
Types Of Transcription Jobs
There are different home transcription jobs, as you would see once you look at them online. Each type requires certain skills and (possibly) equipment.
General Transcription
This involves transcription of any kind of audio files including lectures, dictations, phone messages, conference calls, interviews, seminars, speech and podcast.
Home transcriber jobs may come from various sectors like academe, business, media and more. Some job ads require no specific training and certification, but they give work experience more consideration.
They may also use transcribed audio recordings for blogging. In Figure 3, for example, the client requires transcripts for podcast episodes and these transcripts will later appear as posts in a blog.
Figure 3
1. Financial or Corporate Transcription - Still a part of general transcription, you need to be knowledgeable about business and financial concepts like annual reports, earnings, and more. If you are a graduate of accounting and business courses, then you would find some job positions that suit your needs.
2. Legal Transcription - This is a specialization under general transcription. You need to be familiar with legal procedures and terms. If you are a legal or paralegal professional, you may also find a job in this field.
3. Offline Captioning - This involves transcribing a recorded audio or video and using the transcript for the post-production of the client.
4. Medical Transcription - This is a transcription specialization that calls for a specific certification and training.
Take, for example, Figure 2 above. In most cases, the transcriptionist will work on the dictation of a doctor or a medical practitioner. The patient’s medical record could contain your transcript.
5. Real-time Transcription - This is live transcription instead of recorded audio transcription. This is a job that requires very accurate and fast typing skills. The professional transcriber also needs to use stenography equipment.
- Court Reporting is an on-site job where they record the proceedings in a court.
- Real-time captioning is typing the words from a live video.
- CART or Communication Access Real-Time translation is a transcription job done especially for the hearing impaired. They perform this during conferences, meetings, school classes, legislative sessions, etc. Some positions could offer the option to work remotely.
How To Apply
This will depend on where you prefer to apply.
Membership To A Certain Service Provider
There are companies that offer transcription services and they provide interested applicants to send an application through their websites.
In some online resources you will find, you could read about these companies. In this example shown in Figure 4, the website for TranscribeMe has a dedicated page for people who want to join as a transcriptionist.
Figure 4
The company is perfect for entry level applicants since it welcomes even those with no or little work experience. One requirement is English language skill.
To apply, you need to accomplish an online form and also watch a video explaining the job and the company. Afterwards, you will take an exam where you will have an audio file to listen to and transcribe.
Just as you avail membership of any companies offering specialized and specific services, you need to research more and read what others have to say.
From these reviews, they approve TranscribeMe to be a great place for beginner transcribers, as it offers flexibility in work hours and opportunities for advancement.
Yet, they also claim it to have few jobs and a low pay rate.
Apply through Online Job Portals
While this also involves signing up first to the job portal, you may find and apply for vacancies other than home transcriber jobs. Figure 5 shows a job posted at OnlineJobs.Ph for full-time transcriptionists and proof readers.
Figure 5
The application process usually involves sending a resume, but this job post shows that the applicants need only to transcribe an audio file.
You must do well in transcribing the test audio file because this is the only test you need to pass to get accepted.
Potential Income
Clients or employers determine the payment rate, payment method and payment frequency.
In Figure 2, the hired medical transcriptionist may receive Php 15,000 to 20,000 a month.
In Figure 5, the starting pay is Php 500 pesos a day. Working 5 days a week in 4 weeks, you will get only Php10,000.
Figure 6
The earning potentials from home transcriber jobs may also come from other related sources.
Although it is not part of what you could earn exactly from transcribing, earnings from home transcriber jobs could increase when you partake in the affiliate programs of transcription services providers.
Work Schedule
The client, employer or company will determine the work schedule, and they could provide you with some options only.
Let’s look again at Figure 5. The requirement is to work for 8 hours a day. There is no given specific time or day, but they indicate it you have the option to work for 5 or six days in a week.
Figure 7
Figure 7, meanwhile, shows that the hired person will work on a rotating schedule and could even work during Philippine holidays and at night.
Benefits
As mentioned earlier, there are home-based and office-based positions available for home transcriber jobs. It is not only the work environment that differs but also the pay and the benefits.
Office-based transcribers usually have higher pay and better benefits than freelancer and home-based transcriptionists.
From Figure 7, we could see that a person hired for the job will work in Boni, Mandaluyong City.
It could either mean you will need to travel or move to that city, which is both inconvenient for a home-buddy applicant. Yet, there are a lot of benefits and perks offered with the basic monthly salary.
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Conclusion
PROS
CONs
During my first time as a virtual worker, one task I did was make a transcript of the audio files of my then employer (a bankruptcy lawyer). His files were about how he planned to spend his next few days, so I thought transcription is such as an easy job.
Soon after I left that first virtual assistant job, I tried applying for home transcriber jobs and part of the application was to transcribe an audio recording.
It was then when I realized that transcription is not a job for me. Personally, I find the job too stressful because I need to listen to a recording multiple times, which was tiresome at some point.
Add this to the fact that the person speaking may have an accent you are not familiar with. The audio files I tried even have background noises that make words sound garbled.
No job is easy. Earning money requires investing effort, and if you think you have the patience to transcribe, then there are a lot of jobs you could apply for.