A work-from-home transcription job can allow you to manage your own time, avoid traffic commutes, and tailor your work hours and schedule to fit seamlessly with family and personal commitments.
If you are an experienced typist, ready to make that move, click here: Transcription Job.
However, transcription can be a tricky market to break into if you are a beginner looking for an entry-level role, so we have put together a few tips on how to get a foothold in this competitive industry.
What does a transcription job involve?
A home-based transcription job involves listening to voice recordings and typing them up into written transcripts. The source could be a lecture, a conference call, a podcast or simply someone’s notes that need to be professionally typed up. With the right skills, a transcription job can be a flexible and rewarding opportunity to set you on your way to a work-from-home career.
Transcription skills & experience
There are a few boxes you need to tick before applying for a transcriptionist role and beginning your work-from-home life:
- You will need to have a great command of the English language. Some recordings will be poor quality and have multiple voices. You will need to be able to make out faint, mumbled, interrupted and poorly recorded conversations, and to transcribe them accurately.
- You will need excellent listening skills. Often audio recordings contain multiple, hard to differentiate voices; other times the content will be detailed and technical. Good listening skills are key attributes for a transcriptionist.
- Excellent research skills are essential. Recordings may contain words or phrases you have not heard before. Some examples of this are medical terminology, new technology, brand names or foreign place names. It is important that you are able to research these and spell them correctly.
- You need to be an accurate and fast typist, capable of at least 40wpm. The faster you type, the more you will earn, and so if you are a slow typist it may be difficult to earn enough money to make this worth your while. Clients expect their scripts to be accurate, and here at Transcript Divas we guarantee our transcripts are at least 99% accurate on clear recordings. As our contractor, you will need to be able to meet this requirement.
- Experience, and being able to show a history of your transcription work will make you more hireable. A well-defined work history that highlights the roles where you acquired your skills, coupled with a recent client portfolio that showcases your project experience, will significantly enhance your employability. And a can-do attitude to getting things done right is essential.
Here at Transcript Divas, we’d love to hear from you if you can meet these criteria.
Don’t meet the criteria but still want to work from home?
A transcription service usually won’t hire a beginner for a remote transcription job. However, there a few things you can you do to gain an entry-level role.
- Training is key. Completing a course, usually online, as a medical or legal transcriptionist, something similar to canscribe.com, will be beneficial.
- Practice your skills. This will help build up your speed and accuracy, and motivate you to be earning more.
- As you get started, look for small entry-level roles to begin your career. Some won’t pay much, but they will give you the crucial experience you need to get hired for bigger, better jobs down the track. Try places like Fiverr or freelancer.com.
- Gain a reputation, start small and complete a wide variety of smaller jobs. As you complete more jobs you will move to bigger and better jobs, while also building a work history. Aim to get some regular clients.
Working from home as a transcriptionist can be a great choice for anyone. You may already be qualified to begin your working-from-home career, but if you do not yet have the experience, begin your practice and training and build your work history. It won’t take long for you to be a fully-fledged, fast, accurate transcriptionist, living your dream of working from home.