Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Listen to me talk about this article in my podcast.
Imagine listening in on someone's private thoughts, ideas, conversations, office meetings, interviews, or a plethora of other activities and events. If this piques your interest, you could be earning extra money from home as a transcriptionist whether you have hours of free time or just a few minutes here and there throughout your day.
If you've ever had the experience of trying to decipher a machine generated voice message, you can easily understand why there is such a demand for real people transcription services. Voice recognition technology is still a long ways away from being as accurate as a native English speaking human transcriptionist.
For starters, a transcriptionist should possess these qualities:
– A strong command of the English language and grammar
– A love for learning
– A sharp ear that can differentiate between voices that sound similar
– A motivation to finish work ahead of deadlines
– Honesty, integrity and reliability
– Be computer savvy
– Accurate and speedy typing skills
– Able to pass a background check
The field for a transcriptionist is wide open. If you have experience in the healthcare industry, for example, opportunities abound for the person who can accurately transcribe files that include medical and pharmaceutical terminology. The same goes for many other specialized fields of work. However, you don't need to have a background in any particular vocation to land a job as a transcriptionist.
For a beginning transcriber, try a service like Scribie to gain valuable experience and hone your skills. With Scribie you can become a freelance transcriber and earn hourly for each 6 minute file you complete. All their files are short, 6 minutes or less, general transcription (non-medical) files. It usually takes approximately 18 minutes to accurately transcribe a 6 minute file depending on your comprehension ability, typing speed, quality of the audio file, etc.
They pay $10 per audio hour which translates to $1 per 6 minute file. Audio hour means that you are paid for the amount of audio time you transcribe and not for the actual time spent working on it. Unless you're an extremely fast and accurate typist, you'll only be earning about $3.30 an hour, a poor wage by any U.S. standards.
However, if you're able to consistently submit great work, you can eventually be promoted to “reviewer” status. As a reviewer, you can self-review your own files and your pay rate will double to $20 per audio hour. They also pay a monthly bonus of $10 for every 3 hours of work completed per month.
Scribie has a practice set of files that you can try out to see if this is for you. Because of the low rate of pay, think of Scribie as a way to school yourself in the world of transcription work. This could give you the experience you need to move on to a higher paying transcription service, and a better part-time or full-time position as an online professional transcriptionist.
Beware, however, one of the pitfalls of Scribie is that you could be put on a long waiting list before you have an opportunity to try it out. So don't expect that you'll be able to apply one day and be working the next.
Quicktate also uses live, professional transcribers to convert recorded audios to text. Transcriptions are of general notes, to-do lists, medical reports, conference calls, legal files, memos, letters, voicemail messages, and much more. They accept audio recordings of any length and currently transcribe English and Spanish files.
Another branch of the Quicktate family is IDictate. IDictate transcribes all types of files, except for voicemail messages.
Quicktate earnings are based on the type of transcription you're doing and whether or not you are transcribing a file for Quicktate or iDictate.
The rate of pay for Quicktate General Transcription is 0.0025 per word, that is ¼ cent per word. (This is equal to 1 cent for every 4 words.) The rate of pay for Quicktate Medical Transcription is 0.0050 per word, that is 1/2 cent per word. (This is equal to 1 cent for every 2 words.) The rate of pay for IDictate Transcription is 0.0050 per word, that is 1/2 cent per word. (This is equal to 1 cent for every 2 words.)
Another service worth taking a look at is Verbalink. Unlike Scribie, Verbalink generally looks for experienced transcriptionists. If you have a background in fields such as medical and legal services, linguistics, law enforcement, and education, Verbalink may give you the opportunity you're looking for in transcription work. Even if you don't have a background in one of these fields, Verbalink offers plenty of opportunities for transcriptionists.
Verbalink seems to set the bar pretty high for their transcriptionists and expect that they possess general knowledge of current events, American popular culture, and are familiar with idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms.
According to Verbalink, having the ability to differentiate between several voices, understand those with heavy accents, and hear a speaker above loud background noises is a required skill in order to be a great transcriptionist. They also expect their transcriptionists to have a working knowledge of email and Microsoft Word.
Verbalink does not list their pay on their website, nor can it be found in their forums. All they say about it is that they pay a competitive ‘living wage', whatever that is.
Try some of thesample files, take the tests, and carefully read through the requirements, to see if an at-home job as a transcriptionist is right for you.
