The Transcriptionist’s Job Description – In Detail

The job of a transcriptionist is to convert recorded speech into written form. This means listening to an audio or video recording and then typing it to produce a written document. Aside from being a fast typist, he or she should have excellent listening ability to ensure accuracy in transcription. A transcriptionist needs to have a great understanding of English grammar, punctuation, styles, etc. Most of the time, transcriptionist encounters accents that are hard to understand, so he or she should somehow be familiar with different English accents. Some of the accents that transcribers are struggling at are British/Scottish, Australian and South African accent.

Computer Savvy Transcriptionist

A transcriptionist should also be able to utilize the Internet for research. This includes the company names, speaker names as well as different terminologies that can come up in the transcription. Also, he or she should have basic computer skills especially if working from home. This involves being able to upload and download files, including conversion of audio or video files, communicate with clients and co-workers through e-mail and troubleshoot minor computer or Internet problems. He or she also needs a stable Internet connection, up-to-date computer unit of at least 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard disk, 2.2 GHz CPU and good-quality headphones. Foot pedals are not that necessary as most of the transcription software provides hot keys or shortcut keys that a transcriber can modify. Winamp Player and Express Scribe are two of the most common transcription software that can be obtained for free.

Medical transcription, legal transcription and general transcription are three of the most common in-demand positions in this field. Although each with different set of skills required, all positions need to produce at least 98% error-free transcript according to the client format preference.

Working from home is the most common set up in being a transcriptionist, so one should work with less supervision, provide all the necessary equipment for the job, able to operate on the computer independently, have focus and can work under pressure to meet tight deadlines.