The transcription industry is a wide and varied world. How do you even start to explore your career options?

Why not begin with medical and general transcription, which are two of the most popular options out there?

The career path to becoming a medical transcriptionist is more clearly laid out than for a general transcriptionist. You’ll find numerous medical training programs out there, but far fewer in the general category. Ask several general transcriptionists how they landed in their current job and you’ll probably get a wide variety of responses regarding their career path.

Both career destinations provide excellent opportunities for satisfying work. I’ll provide some basic insight into several of the differences between both career options, as well as some of the pros and cons of each.

 

First, what does medical transcription involve?

So, what does a medical transcriptionist do? These folks work in both clinical (non-hospital setting) and acute care (hospital setting) roles where transcription services are often required.

To give you an idea of the topics involved in each, clinical work deals with typical ailments on a daily basis, such as common colds, flus, and even routine preventative care. Acute care offers an emergency room backdrop and challenging surgical work, as well as the introduction of new procedures and drugs that might not yet be well documented (yep, that’s code for tough-to-research).

You can further subdivide clinical work and acute care into many different specialties. Think about every ‘ology’ and body system out there—cardiology, immunology, neurology, and the list goes on.

For days.

That sounds like a lot of opportunities to keep you busy as a medical transcriptionist, doesn’t it? But wait, there’s more!

 

What’s general transcription all about?

So what is this thing called “general transcription,” you ask?

General transcription jobs are often work-from-home positions encompassing practically everything that’s not strictly legal or medical. So it’s quite broad. Industries utilizing general transcriptionists include (but are not limited to):

• Academia
• Business
• Entertainment
• Insurance

It’s easy to see that there are numerous and varied general transcription job opportunities out there for you.  And the list is far from complete.

 

Medical transcriptionist pros and cons

What you really want to know is if the grass is greener on a particular side, right? Honestly, that’s a personal thing—the choice is going to be different for each individual.

If you have a strong interest in the medical field and the money/time to spend on the training, medical transcription might be the thing for you. You’ll be dealing with one-speaker files and better audio quality (usually).

Turnaround requirements are generally tighter for medical transcriptionists. So you will want to consider how much time you need (and want) to complete files. If you’re working on numerous accounts with tons of different specifications, specialties, and doctors–particularly doctors for whom English is a second language—all these factors can slow you down.  Working with one doctor who says the same things repeatedly will, of course, be faster and easier.

 

General transcriptionist pros and cons

If medical lingo and tight turnaround times aren’t your cup of tea, no worries!

Turnaround times are usually longer for general transcription services. The number of speakers, subject matter, and audio quality will depend on the type of general transcription job you have.

From my personal experience, insurance transcription usually involves two-person interviews, and the interview setup is similar regardless of the type of claim involved. Both factors certainly lend themselves to higher production levels.

While you’ll likely find more on-site opportunities as a medical transcriptionist than a general transcriptionist, freelance, work-from-home jobs have largely become the norm for both industries. And whether that’s a good or bad thing largely depends on your personality, which brings me to my next point.

 

Consider your personality traits

Are you suited for either a general or medical transcription job? Regardless of the transcription flavor, certain personality traits are ideal. If you have a keen eye for detail, are self-motivated, enjoy working alone, are a bit of a perfectionist, can sit for long periods of focused time, and are an intuitive listener, then transcription might be a perfect fit for you.

Conversely, if you abhor repetitive activities or need constant social interaction, transcription is probably not a good choice. Working from home without much supervision means no conversations around the water cooler and a whole lot of personal responsibility for getting the work done.

 

Do your research and then go for it!

There are several significant similarities and differences to consider when comparing medical and general transcription service jobs. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Be sure to do your research before choosing a career path. Talk to other transcriptionists. Take a look at pay rates for both medical transcription jobs and general transcription jobs.

If you decide the general transcription field interests you, I recommend digging into your options here because there are many. You can transcribe sermons, board meetings, job interviews, and the list goes on. But you’ll usually end up working for a vendor (or finding direct clients) with a specific industry focus. Allegis Transcription focuses almost entirely on insurance transcription. This means transcribing recorded statements, which primarily involve files with two speakers.

So, take a look around, talk to other transcriptionists, and start applying! Any questions? Post in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!

 

If you’re a freelance transcriptionist, and you aren’t on LinkedIn, you could be limiting your job opportunities.

A professional network is your career’s support system. It’s how you learn about new job opportunities, get career advice, and stay up-to-date on industry developments.

To maximize your online transcription job opportunities, you will benefit from having a large, well-developed network in place before you need it. Just like Seth Godin says, “Dig your well before you’re thirsty.”

Most professionals now have a presence on LinkedIn, and the networking site is here to stay.

Despite the site’s popularity, I realize the benefits and relevance aren’t always readily apparent to newcomers. Some still view the site as a fad, a “nice to have,” or irrelevant to their careers. I disagree.

Let’s look at why the site matters for freelance transcriptionists. Then I’ll share a few tips on how to get the most out of the time you spend on LinkedIn.

 

Companies are recruiting on LinkedIn.

Having a profile and engaging on LinkedIn can help you land your next work-from-home job or contract.

In the early 2000s, online professional networking was perhaps “nice to have,” but wasn’t necessary for career success. This is no longer true.

If you don’t have an online presence, you don’t exist to some employers.

An exaggeration? Not at all. In 2015, 94 percent of recruiters used LinkedIn to find candidates. That’s huge. And that figure includes Allegis. We use the professional networking site to find freelance transcription candidates and post jobs.

Sure, we also use online job boards like Indeed and Craigslist, but that’s not enough. Recruiters are increasingly going after passive candidates. Think about it. Why wait for candidates to apply when you can reach them before they leave their current job and entice them away with a better offer?

As Ladders, an online job matching site points out, “If you aren’t on LinkedIn, you are reducing your chances of being discovered.” And why would you want to do that?

Oh, and I should point out before we dive in that I have no affiliation with LinkedIn, and I’m not being paid to sing their praises.

 

Why does being on LinkedIn matter?

So, why am I prodding you to join? Well, partly for selfish reasons. Right now I can’t find you, and I want you to transcribe for us.

I also have a more altruistic reason. I want to help freelance transcriptionists thrive in work-from-home careers. Thriving means having access to a wide and deep network of connections. It’s also about making yourself visible so opportunities can come to you.

Plus, LinkedIn makes it easy to have a slick, professional online resume. I know that the resumes our recruiting team receives vary greatly in quality. The qualifications might be there, but applicants often do an insufficient job of presenting their information in a professional manner. The answer? Let LinkedIn organize your information for you. Just fill out their profile template and you will have a well-presented online resume.

 

But it’s so much work to start a profile.

No. Not really. I think it’s easier to do than filling out a paper application.

Here are the details you’ll be including:

 Basic details, including name, position, and general location
 Profile picture
 Work history
 Skills (e.g. transcription, editing, Spanish translation)
 Education, languages (if relevant)

I recommend filling out the summary section as well. It doesn’t have to be more than two or three sentences, but this is a powerful way to share your professional goals and highlight your expertise.

For your work history, a good rule of thumb to follow is to focus on previous positions related to–or that reinforce–your current position. For example, I’ve focused my career on sales and marketing, so I don’t list the construction company I worked for years ago. But only do this if it doesn’t create significant time gaps in your employment history. This tip is most applicable to those of you who wear multiple hats. If you’re a freelance transcriptionist who, at one point, ran a lawn care business on the side—you might not want to list that because it can be distracting and doesn’t reinforce your transcribing expertise.

 

Put LinkedIn to work and make yourself visible.

Great. You’re on LinkedIn. Now what?

Make it easy for recruiters and potential employers and contractors to find you.

Consider this—when recruiters look for transcriptionists, this often involves heading over to LinkedIn and performing a search. This is where keywords come in.

I might use keywords like “freelance transcriptionist” and “independent contractor” to find potential applicants. If you haven’t included these terms or “keywords” on your profile somewhere, I’m not going to see you show up in results.

Let’s increase your visibility with the following tips.

Keywords

Don’t go overboard, but be smart about including the right keywords in your profile. If you want a medical transcription position, mention this somewhere, maybe in your summary or title.

The goal is to show up in searches. Recruiters often skim search results without ever clicking into profiles. Skimming means they often just see your photo, headline, and location. That’s it. Make sure you have optimized this information.

Not sure where to start? Surf around LinkedIn and look at the profiles of others in your field. Look at the terminology and keywords they use to describe themselves.

Assess your competition. These are the people recruiters will be comparing you to. How do you stack up?

Groups

You might be familiar with the various transcription forums out there (Transcription Essentials, Transcription Haven, etc.). A LinkedIn group is similar.

You can join groups based on professional interests or focus areas. I’m a member of several transcription groups, for example.

That brings me to my next point. Recruiters often join groups where the members have the skills and background they’re looking for.

Makes sense, right?

And don’t just join groups to join them. Engage. This is your chance to network with like-minded individuals. It’s an online community where you can share your knowledge and contribute through commenting and assisting others.

My last tip here is to join a group with plenty of members and lots of activity. Groups like Legal Transcription with over five thousand members and Closed Captions, Subtitles, and Transcription have over four thousand members. I’m not a member of either group, but they seem quite popular and might be worth checking out.

Want to know more about how to use groups effectively in your job search for a freelance transcription job? This post from U.S. News is a great place to start.

 

A word on data privacy.

I know some might have concerns about data privacy and putting your information “out there” on the internet. That’s understandable, and I feel your pain, but fret not. LinkedIn doesn’t require highly sensitive, personal information.

LinkedIn does not require your address (only city and state), phone number, or social security number.

You won’t be risking exposure of your personally identifiable information.

 

So, I’ve convinced you to join. Right?

LinkedIn is big for your career as a freelance transcriptionist. Approximately 414 million users worldwide use the site, and it continues to grow. This site is no longer “nice to have.” Now it’s a necessity.

Remember that LinkedIn is a place for professionals. That’s exactly what you are. You are a highly skilled, transcription professional.

As a freelancer, you’re essentially running your own business. That means you’re responsible for bringing customers in the door, whether it’s from contracting with vendors or serving your transcription clients directly. This makes your business network all the more important.

I hope I’ve encouraged you enough to check out LinkedIn and to begin building your presence and profile. It’s not difficult and will pay dividends well into the future.

Join before you need it. Having a large, active online professional network helps ensure you will always have a source of work.

 

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Psst! We’re hiring. If you’re an awesome transcriptionist looking for something new, click below to see our open positions.

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Voice recognition is no longer science fiction. Tell Siri to pull up a song from your favorite artist and it automagically plays (well, about half the time… ). If you have a newer car, there’s a good chance that your auto has voice recognition built-in, so you can send texts, initiate navigation, and much more. Fact is, voice recognition technology has made a great deal of progress, especially over the past decade, and it continues to rapidly improve.

So, what does this technology mean for you, as a transcriptionist? Replacing keyboards and transcriptionists with voice recognition software might seem like something that’s right around the corner. It’s an appealing concept to most people to no longer have to type. Artificial intelligence systems for court rooms are already in use to transcribe testimony at trials and hearings. The next advancement is presumed to include automatic transcribers for telephone and in-person interviews.

However, no matter how advanced these systems become, they still require human intervention. One encounter with Dragon Dictate or other voice recognition programs and you learn that speech subtleties remain difficult for machines. This is especially true with verbatim transcription and the evidential weight placed on it during insurance proceedings.

Verbatim Transcription and Insurance Claims

Claim analysts, subrogation specialists, and special investigation professionals rely heavily on witness and claimant testimony when making decisions. Interviews are an essential tool in this process and in order to interpret it accurately, verbatim transcription is also necessary.

Verbatim transcription does not miss a single syllable—verbal pauses (“um”), false starts, stutters, repeated words, mispronounced words, and grammatical errors are all captured in a verbatim transcript. In most jobs, this is not only unnecessary but a distraction. Interviews for journalism pieces, for example, are never transcribed verbatim because finding usable quotes is time-consuming, if not impossible, if the transcription is verbatim.

However, insurance claims are different. Verbal ticks and pauses can help provide context. Heavy stuttering while discussing one fact could indicate exaggeration or dishonesty. Mispronounced words show a lack of expertise that could reduce credibility for an expert witness. Legal testimony in depositions or court hearings is transcribed verbatim for the same reason—having a complete and accurate typed record provides context and facts that an edited transcript misses.

A Good Tool—Not a Replacement

If you use voice recognition software, you will immediately notice its challenges. The most noticeable ones include:

• Training. This is not just for users who need to learn commands and how to speak in an understandable manner, but the software too. Good quality voice recognition platforms contain an artificial intelligence algorithm that helps them adapt to their users. Particular accents, pronunciation, and idiosyncrasies make the process interesting at first but the software learns to interpret them. There are multi-user platforms available where the voice recognition software saves user profiles so it can apply different rules to each user.

• Names and Specialized Vocabulary: When dictating a report or letter, you stop and give a command to spell names or words that the voice recognition software will not recognize. The adaptive function kicks in here too by remembering new words and names. As you can imagine, there is no practical way to do this in an interview.
• Homonyms and Context: Words may be spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. Think “the dog barks” and “the tree has bark” as one example. There are also words with the same pronunciation but different contexts and spelling—take “to, too, two” for example. Voice recognition may understand words but sometimes, its grammar and context skills leave much to be desired.

The key difference that sets verbatim transcription apart from other projects is editing. You can edit that letter, memorandum, or medical record summary after dictating it to your software so that you submit a clean product. When the issues listed above create a head-scratching product, you can fix the errors without changing the meaning.

When you apply these shortcomings to verbatim transcripts, you risk losing important, sometimes crucial, detail. As discussed, verbal pauses and grammatical errors can indicate nervousness or misstating the truth. If your voice recognition software gets verbal pauses or context wrong, and you later try to edit it, your best case scenario is an inaccurate record.

Voice recognition is an excellent feature for devices and particular projects. It makes many tasks easier but verbatim transcription is not one of them. Even the most advanced systems in court rooms require real-time editing by a court reporter. If you are feeling apprehensive about starting a career in verbatim transcription, do not fear. Your abilities to assess subtleties and context will always be superior no matter how much future voice recognition products advance.