Overview-Transcription Career and Course

Transcription, by itself is one of the simplest professions in the world. Its requirements are few. There is ample future scope for employment and even self-employment. Above all, it carries the work from home advantage and flexibility of timings that is the envy of other professions.

These advantages make the profession slightly competitive especially in this economic environment. Having a formal certification in transcription along with an internship puts you a step ahead and gives you an edge over your competitors.

The course will give you training and tips that will increase your accuracy. It will make you stand out among your colleagues.

Successful transcriptionists need to have the following skills:

• Good Ears
• Fast Fingers – don’t worry if you don’t have them now, it’s not a must-have to start. You will have them once you start working
• Recognition of Terms
• Knowledge of Punctuation
• Patience
• Responsibility
• Be smart and informed
• Good grammar and spelling skills

Most people think that all one needs to become a successful transcriptionist are good ears and fast fingers. You do need good ears and your typing speed will improve, but you also have to be well rounded enough to know to transcribe “Bear Market”, not “Bare Market”.

You must be able to recognize the difference between "discreet" and "discrete". And you must be afflicted with an enthusiasm for punctuation that borders on fetish in order to make people read as they sound.

Course Objective

The ultimate objective of the course is to make you a transcriptionist par excellence. The skillsets developed will help you get employment in the best of companies or start your own business. At the end of the course you will have acquired the skillsets below.

1. Understood grammar, punctuation and sentence structure requirements for accurate transcription.
2. Learnt to focus on correct version of spellings for example differentiate between ‘bear’ and ‘bare’ by paying attention to details.
3. Gained tips on how to transcribe multi-speaker documents with ease.
4. Become familiar with different accents.
5. Learnt parameters on how to make judgment calls when recordings are not clear.
6. Become an expert in MS Word.
7. Learnt formatting requirements of top transcription companies.
8. You will be familiar with HIPAA guidelines for confidentiality.

By virtue of practice you would have become a better listener, learnt to manage your time better and acquired the self-discipline so important for work from home professionals.

Training Course Details

Our program includes eleven General Transcription lessons. Mastery of each lesson is needed to become a top-notch transcriptionist. Each lesson is followed by a quiz. You will need to pass the quiz in order to get to the next lesson.
Below is the list of lessons and what you will learn:

1. Transcription Tips – This lesson includes an overview of transcription; what is transcription, different types of transcription, and career opportunities in the transcription field. In this lesson, we also go over equipment needed for doing transcription work, and tips that will help you when transcribing. The lesson also explains the importance of accuracy, formatting, and other important factors involving transcription.
   
2. Speech - The information contained in this lesson is a basic guide to the parts of speech and how they function within the English language. There are thousands of words that comprise the English language. All of these words are categorized into eight classifications as nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. English grammar is merely a set of rules that are established to organize and communicate speech into sentences, phrases, and clauses.
   
3. Punctuation – Punctuation can be a difficult thing to keep up on because it seems like the rules change as often as fads go in and out of style. However, you will learn about foundational rules that will always be in place, and that will make your writing more professional, readable, and clear.
   
4. Interruptive Dialogue – A lot of audios have multiple speakers, who interrupt each other; it can be difficult to transcribe these types of files accurately. This lesson will provide tips and rules on transcribing interruptive dialogue.
   
5. Sentence Structure – The English language contains many common sentence types that state or imply something about a subject or asking a question. This lesson will help you to be able to recognize basic sentence types, which will increase your knowledge of English and help you transcribe more accurately.
   
6. Proofreading – Proofreading is an important skill for any qualified transcriber. Although many companies have QA departments, you should never turn in transcripts that are not proofread first. You may not want to read through a document that you just typed up, but this lesson will help you in making proofreading easy and efficient.
   
7. Keyboard Skills – Keyboarding, contrary to popular belief, is not all about typing speed! In order to become a great keyboarder, you need to be familiar with all sides of your keyboard, top, right, left, and bottom. By becoming familiar with the tools that your keyboard offers, not only will you increase your typing speed, but will also discover some faster ways to do things in your programs and documents.
   
8. Regional Accents – This lesson will give you tips on how to transcribe heavily accented audio, so that your transcripts can have the highest accuracy possible.
   
9. Microsoft Word – The MS Word lesson is a very detailed tutorial on the program. Most, if not all, transcription companies require you to transcribe your documents into Microsoft Word format, so it is very important to be familiar with the tools of the program. After completing this lesson you will start working with MS Word as an expert!
   
10. Time Management - A very important part of being a great transcriptionist is being able to meet strict deadlines. You may end up working for several transcription companies as an independent contractor, and may find yourself juggling several projects along with your household commitments. Working from home makes it even harder to keep deadlines. This lesson gives many tips that will help you organize and maximize your income when working for transcription companies on several projects.
    
11. HIPAA – HIPAA consists of a set of rules that most transcription companies must follow pertaining to confidentiality and privacy of the person and company whose recording is getting transcribed. Confidentiality is one of the most important aspects of transcription. Many clients are submitting highly confidential materials and this lesson will specify the rules for being HIPAA compliant.

Internship Program

To gain hands-on experience and to put your newly acquired skillsets to use we recommend that you sign up for the internship program.

Here is how the process works:

1. You opt-in for internship after completing your certification program.
   
2. You will sign up as independent contractor with the transcription companies providing you internship.
   
3. Transcription companies will send you the paperwork needed to become an independent contractor.
   
4. You commit to transcribing five hours of recording at no cost to the transcription company.
   
5. You ONLY accept projects where you can meet accuracy requirements and the deadline.
   
6. You transcribe the recording on time and send the transcripts to the company.
   

Note: Just like most of the internship program, the Transcription Company does not guarantee any work after internship is done. However, your chance of getting regular work is good assuming that you do a good job.

Text by Transcription Companies:

Transcription Companies provide real work to certified transcriptionists at no cost to them. Only requirement is to guide the transcriptionist and provide a letter detailing job performance, and reference, if needed. Transcription Company is NOT guaranteeing any work after the completion of internship. It simply

1. Agrees to provide work to the certified transcriptionists during internship.
   
2. Send all relevant paperwork to hire transcriptionists as independent contractor.
   
3. Will provide a letter on completion after five hours of transcription is completed. Rate the certified transcriptionist in the letter based on the performance.
   
4. Provide reference for the certified transcript, if requested.
   
5. Consider transcriptionists for ongoing work if their transcripts meet the company’s standards.

Career Options After Insternship

After internship, you might be offered a job at the company you intern with or there are several other choices.

• Become an independent contractor transcriptionist for end users – businesses, research companies, etc.
• Work for brick & mortar transcription companies
  
• Work from home for online transcription companies worldwide
  
• Become a virtual-transcriptionist for end users worldwide
  
• Start a transcription business
  

Become an Independent Contractor Transcriptionist

Many clients want to hire transcriptionists as independent contractors (IC), and pay by performance. It could be a work from home or client’s location job opportunity.

Transcriptionists will need to demonstrate their qualification and experience in order to get hired as an IC transcriptionist. A profile highlighting experience on professional networking websites likelinkedin.com, in social media sites like facebook.com, and on transcription oriented websites likeTranscriptionVendors.com should be done by every transcriptionist who want to work from home.Certification from Transcription Certification Institute will help build credibility as a qualified General Transcriptionist.

Work for Brick & Mortar Transcription Companies

There are brick and mortar transcription companies looking for general transcriptionists. There are directories of transcriptionists available on the web that may help identify any transcription company in the area of transcriptionist choice. A completed profile, certification of typing speed and accuracy, and certification as a General Transcriptionist from TCI would help compete with other candidates.A job that pays an hourly wage will be hired based on your typing speed and accuracy. Free typing practice is available at www.typingweb.com. These companies usually test for speed and accuracy before hiring.

Work for Online Transcription Companies Worldwide

A new transcriptionist may have a better shot at finding transcription work as an IC transcriptionist at online transcription companies. These are typically work-from-home jobs, where companies pay by performance. The only thing that counts here is accuracy and timely delivery.
Most successful online transcription companies are always looking for qualified transcriptionists. An online profile at websites like linkedin.com, facebook.com etc could be helpful when applying for an IC transcriptionist position at online transcription companies.Transcriptionists will typically need to take their test and pass it in order to get work from online transcription companies.

Become a virtual Transcriptionist for Clients worldwide

A good portion of transcription customers prefer to work with one transcriptionist instead of dealing with a company, so that the transcriptionist gets used to their style and special requirements.Chances of getting a Virtual Transcriptionist job will increase dramatically if a transcriptionist can also provide Virtual Assistant services to their client.

Start your own Transcription Business

The following is required to start a transcription service business:

• Website
  
• Marketing&Web marketing
• Local direct marketing by mail and phone
  
• Execution of work
  

Starting your own transcription business requires juggling several balls at a time. It requires business plan, a website, internet and offline marketing, actual execution of work, and perhaps a need to hire qualified transcriptionists depending on how much you want your business to grow.

Transcription Tools

• Hardware and Software Requirements
  
• A computer with a printer hookup.
  
• A comfortable space for working.
  
• Speakers or high quality headphones. We suggest headphones as it does not disturb other people.
  
• Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel software.
  
• MS Outlook is desired for communication with client and for setting alerts about the impending deadlines of projects.
  
• Windows Media Player or similar software is needed to play the recordings for transcription. This is usually available at no cost.
  
• High Speed Internet Access to upload and download files.

Transcribing Equipment

• Foot pedal to control speed, reverse, and fast forward digital recordings.
• Headphones

Marketing Yourself

Whether working from home as a general transcriptionist, or running a full-service transcription business, below are some marketing activities that will bring more customers:

• Start with aggressive rates and offer 100% satisfaction or money back guarantees.
• Advertise transcription services on Google, Yahoo &Bing. Local level advertising can be inexpensive and could cost as little as $100 a month or even less for certain areas.
  
• List the business on local business section of Google, Yahoo &Bing.
  
• List the services on craigslist.org.
  
• Create a professional profile on social media sites like linkedin.com, facebook.com or transcriptionvendors.com
  
• Direct mail to the target customers.
  
• Register with freelance services like elance.com, guru.com, etc. and bid for jobs posted on those sites.
  
• Ask existing clients for referral.
  

Career Questions

There are several questions that transcriptionists often ask us about careers. We have compiled a list.
Just click on the question

1. What is a general transcriptionist?
2. Work for a transcription company or work for own clients?
3. Does it matter what country I live in?
4. Can someone start a transcription company that employs other transcriptionists?
5. Legal Requirements?
6. Some FREE advice and a few words of wisdom
   

Resources

1. Free typing training – www.typingweb.com
2. Typing accuracy and speed certification – www.typingweb.com
3. Online transcription training & certification – www.transcriptioncertificationinstitute.org
4. Transcribing equipment – StartStop.com
5. Website design and marketing solutions – www.gmrwebteam.com
6. Online transcription services platform – www.TranscriptionCertificationInstitute.org
7. Low cost business registration – www.legalzoom.com
8. Employee identification number online –
   http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00.html
9. Free posting of your service – www.craigslist.org
10. Freelance transcriptionist sites for listed project leads (you may need to pay for the leads at some sites):
    1. www.elance.com
    2. www.guru.com
    3. www.ifreelance.com
    4. www.shelancers.com
    5. www.quotecatcher.com
    6. www.quote-it.com
    7. www.vendorseek.com
    8. www.buyerzone.com
    9. www.craigslist.org
11. Marketing Resources
    1. www.gmrwebteam.com – website design, maintenance and marketing
    2. www.onlinebizhq.org – coaching for new entrepreneurs and small businesses
    3. www.transcriptionvendors.com –matchmaking website for transcriptionists and clients
    4. www.gmrhq.com – marketing strategy and business consulting for small and startup businesses
12. Free FTP for large file transfer (for transcriptionists not using Transcription Certification Institute platform) – www.yousendit.com
13. Social Media Websites for creating profiles:
    1. www.facebook.com
    2. www.linkedin.com
    3. www.ling.com
    4. www.myspace.com
    5. www.transcriptionvendors.com – focused on transcriptionists and transcription companies. Requires annual registration fee.
14. How to find transcription companies to apply for employment as Independent Contractor?
    1. Go to www.google.com
    2. Type “transcription services” on the search bar
    3. You will find number of transcription companies in the organic and sponsored sections.
    4. Apply at the companies coming on the organic search first because they are typically more established transcription companies.
    5. Once you have exhausted companies on the organic search, apply to the companies listed on the sponsored search section.