In the past few years transcription has become one of the most common work from home professions. The availability of high speed internet, fall in prices of electronic and computing products has irreversibly changed the Transcription Industry. Where once transcription companies employed scores of transcriptionist, had to acquire endless cooperate space with hundreds of cubicles; today most of its employees are freelancers and work from home.
The drawback of this change in the industry is a lack of supervision and guidance which was readily available to transcriptionists in an office environment. Now Transcriptionists work from home and enjoy much more freedom but at times this might work against their professional goals. As freelancers only they are individually responsible for making or breaking their own careers.
One common problem which the at home transcriptionist and other freelance professionals face is their inability to organize their time well. It’s easy to get distracted; even if it’s not something as silly as the television which keeps you away from work; it could be helping your son with mathematics. Yes there will always be other things to do and that is why we suggest you define your working hours.
Make a routine which suites you, work in a planned manner, know how many of hours work you can give and how many would you need to meet the set deadlines. Letting your friends and family know of your working hours and routine is a good way of preventing distraction.
With transcription you must remember not to try working with the Television on in the background or with the music playing. It can only be done in a quite environment for best results and accuracy.
Another aspect which many ignore is getting the right equipment and software. You must make sure you have the following things in place before you get started.
- A fast processing computer with a good soundcard.
- A decent pair of headphones
- A fast internet connection
- A word processing software like Microsoft Word or Open Word
- A transcription software like EScribe or Express Scribe
A few of these expenses might seem unnecessary like buying a expensive pair of headphones but it would only help you save time and improve the quality of your work which in its turn would increase your professional value.
There are many different kind of transcription out there and specializing in a specific kind would be a good idea. Anyone with good spelling and grammar skill can be a transcriptionist but to do medical or legal transcriptionist, one needs to be a trained.
Many schools, institute and even some transcription companies’ offer transcription course and most of them can be done from home via the internet. A specialized transcriptionist would get more business opportunities and may even charger a higher rate. On the other hand a transcriptionist who is bilingual and can speak and write in two or more languages like French, Spanish and English can be of great asset to transcription companies.