Transcribing

What is Transcription?typing

If you’re looking for a flexible job that allows you to work from home which requires little experience and lets you set your own hours, you might be interested in transcribing. Transcription involves listening to a recording of something and typing the contents into a document which is returned to the client. Transcription jobs usually allow you to work whenever you want and as little or as much as you want. Typically, the recordings you listen to are interviews or speeches,and they are usually broken into general, medical, and legal categories, and the latter two will most likely require prior training or work experience.

Transcription sounds like it would be really easy…just listen to people talking and type what they say. Well, it’s not always easy because there can be background noise, multiple people talking at once, poor audio quality, accents, etc. that make it difficult to make out what people are saying. The work can be repetitive, and you have to listen to the same thing over and over to figure out what is being said. There are also specific rules that need to be followed as far as grammar, symbols, and how things should be typed. You also usually have to separate dialog between multiple speakers.

How Much Does Transcribing Pay?

Transcribing jobs usually pay around $20 – $25 per audio hour transcribed. Medical and legal transcribing jobs will pay more, but you will have to have prior experience or training. After you have worked for a while in transcription and have experience, you can get jobs making more per hour. An experienced transcriptionist can make up to $45 or $50 per hour. An hour of transcription may take you two or more hours to complete, so if you are not a fast typist or have a hard time hearing, this might not be a worthwhile job for you.

Here are a few places to find transcription jobs:

GoToTranscript

This company hires transcribers.  Check them out!

Transcribe Me

This transcription company requires you to take a short training session, but if you can pass their test you will be put on a waiting list for their projects. These are short audio files that you can work on whenever you want, and there are no deadlines. TranscribeMe pays $20 per audio hour and you don’t need any special equipment…just a computer, and speakers or headphones. They pay you for your jobs completed through PayPal.

Rev

Like TranscribeMe, you need to pass a test to work on projects for Rev, and you are free to work as much or as little as you want. Rev pays a little more, between $24 and $30 per audio hour and they pay through Paypal as well. No special equipment is needed.

Tigerfish

This company has been around longer and you also have to pass a skills test, but they prefer you use transcription software and a foot pedal. Tigerfish doesn’t publish their pay scale, but I’m guessing it’s similar to the other companies out there.

Quicktate

You also have to pass a skills test with them, and most projects are short voicemail messages, and occasionally other types of files as well. Transcriptionists can be promoted to iDicate which is a sister company to Quicktate, but only after you have worked for them for a while. Quicktate pays about one cent for every four words transcribes, and iDictate pays two cents for every four words. Both companies pay through PayPal and you can choose how much you want to work.

Crowdsurf

Crowdsurf provides transcription services for the hearing impaired and you must first set up an account with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. (Once you sign up for this, you may be able to find other small online work here). They pay 5 or 6 cents for every 15 seconds of audio transcribed. You get paid through mTurk, and you can have your earnings direct deposited to your account any time you’ve earned at least a dollar.

Transcribing won’t make you a lot of money, but if you have extra down time with nothing to do, you can make some extra money doing it. Some people actually like doing it, and once you get good at it you can finish jobs faster and make more money.

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