Online Transcription Jobs for Beginners

Finding the first job is an inevitable challenge for every young specialist. Work experience is required for each position, but to develop it, you need to find an employer loyal to candidates without a solid track record. It seems impossible to get out of this vicious circle. Fortunately, there are still legit jobs where your degree and experience are only of secondary importance after your skills. The transcriber role is one of them. It is universal for students, recent graduates, and working moms and flexible enough to combine it with other everyday activities.

So how do you start making money transcribing audio and video files into text documents? In this guide, we will discuss transcription jobs from home for beginners to give you comprehensive information for making decisions and starting a career.

What are the Requirements for a Beginner Transcriptionist

Online transcription work includes three main branches: general, medical, and legal.

• General allows you to create captioning data for television, YouTube, private blogs, or even world-famous entertainment companies like Netflix.
• In the medical branch, you deal with transcribing medical reports or records from healthcare providers. For this work, candidates often need certification from the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity.
• The legal industry involves transcriptions of court hearings, interrogations, and briefs, which requires at least knowledge of legal terminology.

But before you decide on a branch, review the must-have skills for all entry-level transcription jobs.

The ability to type fast

Typing speed affects not only the satisfaction of the employer but also your earnings. Usually a transcriber is paid hourly for their work, which means the faster the type, the more valuable you are to the employer. Some companies test the typing speed of candidates before hiring, and the average expected rate is 60 words per minute. To gauge your strength and understand the areas for improvement, take this test before applying for a job. You can use platforms such as Easy Type, powertyping.com, ratatype.com, and others.

Written fluency

Typing is not your only primary mission. You must also provide quality material for a broad audience. Your language skills and writing fluency will help you to avoid grammatical, stylistic, punctuation, and spelling errors. Besides, transcriptionists deal with audio and video files of various subjects. An advanced vocabulary can be an additional competitive advantage. Thanks to it, you will not have to stop typing to listen to the text again and clarify the meaning of words.

Listening skills

It is one thing to create an impeccable text on your own and quite another to type it at dictation. You must be capable of keeping up with the speed of speech and catching the essence of the message. This task requires advanced listening skills and audio perception. You have undoubtedly already encountered the need to dictate, at least when creating lecture notes. But keep in mind that a beginner transcription job requires typing accurate materials for a limited time. To succeed, train your listening skills on your own. It's quite easy: turn on any video and try to put everything being said on paper or ask your friends to dictate stuff for you to write.

Attention to detail

Transcription is essential for both the addressee of the message and for the recipients. For example, subtitles in a video increase the audience's engagement and the number of views. It also improves the quality of life for hearing-impaired people. Therefore, your task when captioning is to preserve the meaning, logic, and accuracy of the message. Thanks to attention to detail, the typed text will not resemble a verbal salad and will be of value to its readers.

Computer skills

Computer skills are a common requirement for any remote work since a laptop is your main means of communication with your employer and the primary tool for completing tasks. If you are applying for a transcriptionist position, you should have a flair with a laptop or computer, headphones, and keyboard. An additional useful device is the foot pedal. It allows you to start, pause, and rewind video or audio with your toes, leaving your hands free to type. Specialized software, in turn, enables you to convert audio to text using automatic transcription and also slow down or speed up recordings.

How to Get Online Transcription Job With No Experience

Although the transcriber position does not require education and work experience, this does not mean that you can get it in a snap. A quick career start, a decent salary, and professional prospects make this work appealing to many young applicants. Before you break into this competition, check the following tips. They will significantly increase your chances.

• Identify your strengths. If you don’t know why you are a perfect candidate, the employer won’t either. You have already found the basic requirements for the position, but you should not stop there. Expect most applicants to have fast typing ability or attention to detail. Therefore, your main task is to consider what else you can offer the employer to tilt the balance in your favor. For example, if you have time management skills, you can meet all the set deadlines. If you have good self-organization, you can work on freelance without supervisor control. This list goes on and on. The main thing is to take an unbiased look at your capabilities.
• Always study the job description. Each company puts forward individual requirements for candidates based on the project's specifics, the complexity of the tasks, the work schedule, and the features of the corporate culture. A careful study of the job description will help you to understand the selection criteria, evaluate your prospects, and prepare a customized self-presentation. The latter, in turn, is an essential condition for any job application.
• Customize your resume. Maybe, you thought that an applicant sends one resume sample to all available vacancies and just waits for a response from one of the employers. But this is an outdated practice. On average, an employer looks at each resume for 6 seconds. If they are not convinced of your suitability during this time, they proceed to the next document. To catch their attention, focus on the specific experience and skills that they value for the transcriptionist position. When writing or editing a resume, use the required skills and personal qualities from the job description as keywords for your document. This will help you pass into the next selection stage.
• Create a cover letter. After you have identified your strengths, you need to present them to the potential employer. For this purpose, reinforce your resume with a cover letter. This document may contain any information that adds value to your candidacy. You can focus on the following points:

1. What skills will help you succeed as a transcriptionist?
2. What personal qualities contribute to your high-quality performance?
3. Why do you want to join this company?
4. What is the value of your position?
5. What is your professional goal or mission?

To answer these questions, you still need to check the job description and visit the company's website or their official social media page. Explore their requirements, values, principles, and mission and use these facts in your cover letter. It will help you create an amazing personalized appeal and prove yourself as the employee they are looking for.

• Prepare for the interview. The interview will be a critical stage in the selection process. Today, recruiters use a variety of tactics and techniques for a comprehensive assessment of the candidate. It’s impossible to predict exactly what type of interview you will face, but you can still prepare answers to frequently asked questions. Given that you are applying for an online transcription job without experience pay special attention to issues such as:

1. How will you recheck the typed text?
2. Tell us about your knowledge of the language. Did you perform duties or tasks where grammar and spelling played a critical role?
3. You don’t have any remote experience. How do you plan to organize your workday?
4. How can you compensate for the lack of experience?
5. What qualities do you think are essential for successful remote work?
6. If you are a student, how do you plan to combine work with your studies? Will academic activity hinder your productivity?

How Much Money Can You Make?

According to PayScale, the average transcriptionist salary is $15.22 per hour. Minimum wages start at $3 per hour, while the highest paying transcribers earn up to $30 per hour.
Your earnings directly depend on the speed of transcription. But this is no reason to gamble only on speed and sacrifice quality. If you make many mistakes and submit documents that do not meet the set standards, do not count on long-term cooperation. Therefore, give yourself time to adapt to the position, learn all the intricacies of the job, and get your hands dirty.
Here are proven ways to increase your earnings:

• Improve yourself step by step. It will help you achieve high speed and quality in transcription and build a professional reputation.
• Study languages. Bilingual transcribers have a broad client base and can request higher fees for their services.
• Meet trouble halfway. If you take on audio files with poor sound quality or a heavy speaker accent, this work is paid more.

List of Companies Offering Transcription Work from Home with No Experience

Transcriptions increase the value of content, promote videos in search engines, and translate text into foreign languages to make it more accessible. The developers of video and audio content have caught on to these advantages. Therefore, companies providing transcription services are in high demand. We have selected the top 30 companies that offer transcription jobs from home with no experience.

1. 1-888-TYPE-IT-UP

1-888-TYPE-IT-UP is a professional transcription team. It regularly hires valuable talent both among experienced professionals and beginners. To join it, you must be a US citizen, fill out an application, complete the test task, and pay a small starting fee. The company receives hundreds of applications weekly, so this fee helps to weed out less interested candidates.

2. Appen

Appen is a high-tech company developing a dataset for artificial intelligence. In addition to the transcriptionist job, the most popular vacancies are social media evaluator and the survey taker. Appen works with staff worldwide and offers both full-time or part-time employment.

3. Scribie

Scribie is the most beginner-friendly company. Compared to its competitors, it pays a little less for transcribers, but you are invited to determine your working hours on your own. Besides, the duration of audio files often does not exceed six minutes, making Scribie an ideal place for your first steps in the industry.

4. TranscribeMe

TranscribeMe always splits large audios into several short segments, which helps beginners get their hands on transcriptions. Hourly wages start at about $20, which is one of the most lucrative offers on the market. The main requirement is an excellent command of English. Therefore, each applicant is required to pass a language test before starting work.

5. Rev

Rev's main advantage is free beginner training. You get tutorials, practice exercises, and feedback from experienced transcribers. Before you begin, you pass tests for grammar and typing. After that, you get access to the list of tasks, each of which has its subject, payment, and deadline. According to the Rev terms, you cannot work on several audio files at the same time, as this may adversely affect the quality of the performance.

6. GoTranscript

GoTranscript opens its doors to entry-level transcribes around the world. The company puts forward minimum requirements for the start of work and offers the help of an editor to every new-hire. Another advantage is the ability to listen to an audio file before taking it to work. It allows employees to gauge their strength.

7. Accutran Global

Collaboration with Accutran Global is available only for residents of the United States and Canada. A suitable candidate must print at least 70 words per minute and have advanced time management skills, as the company puts forward strict deadlines. Therefore, make sure that your academic and extracurricular activities will not prevent you from completing tasks on time.

8. Castingwords

Unlike most companies, Castingwords does not require your resume and there is no need to pass preliminary testing. All you have to do is register on the platform. Castingwords uses badges to rate transcriptionists. The more badges you have, the more gigs you have access to. If you have poor performance, you can lose your badges. But do not worry about this at the beginning of the work. The platform is loyal to beginners and gives them time for training.

9. Bam! Transcription

Bam specializes mainly in transcriptions for entertainment companies. To succeed, you must carefully study the requirements of each project before undertaking its implementation. It allows you to meet all the specified standards and develop a reputation. You cannot apply for a position through the website, so you will have to contact the recruiter via email. In this case, a customized resume and cover letter will come in handy.

10. Verbal Ink

Verbal Ink provides customers with a high-quality product and therefore has a good reputation in the market. It explains the rigorous selection criteria for transcriptionists. To join the team, you must prove your fluency in English and the ability to understand heavy accents. Verbal Ink expects to receive a resume and cover letter from each candidate as a confirmation of their genuine interest in the position.

11. Ubiqus

Ubiqus requires work experience only if you are applying for legal or medical transcriber work. Therefore, feel free to try your hand in general transcriptions. The company's main requirements are typing speed of 70 words per minute and advanced time management skills to complete work in the shortest possible time.

12. Daily Transcription

Daily Transcription Daily Transcription invites beginners to unlock their potential in legal, entertainment, and corporate transcriptions. At the initial stage, it’s enough to type at a speed of 50 words per minute, but your future success will depend on your desire for self-development. As a bonus, you can manage your workload through a scheduler on the website that assigns tasks according to your specified business hours.

13. GMR Transcription

GMR Transcription offers transcriptionists a broad selection of topics, including academic, business, and legal. You can choose any files that match your area of ​​expertise or interests. In addition to the preliminary test, be prepared for a trial period that includes transcribing two hours of audio. If you complete it successfully, you will get paid work.

14. Tigerfish

Tigerfish offers collaboration to all US residents who have come of age. To join the transcriptionist team, you need to transcribe three audio files according to the requirements and style guidelines. Before sending the tasks for review, indicate how long it took you to complete each of them. This information will serve as the basis for decision making.

15. Neal R. Gross

Legal transcriptions in Neal R. Gross require 1.5-2 years of experience. But if you are studying for a law degree or better yet have the appropriate degree, feel free to apply for the transcriber position and prove your professional aptitude. Typing speed of 60 words per minute and the ability to work up to 30 hours per week serve as a competition advantage.

16. Crowdsurf

Crowdsurf offers transcriptionists audio files lasting from 5 to 30 seconds. All tasks are hosted on Mechanical Turk, so create your account on this platform to start work. You can manage your work schedule according to your needs and financial goals. Crowdsurf does not set a lower limit on working hours, and you can work even a few minutes a day.

17. Way With Words

Your experience really doesn't matter, as candidate skills are of paramount importance to Way With Words. To join their staff, you are invited to take online and offline tests. An online test assesses your language knowledge, research skills, and audio perception. The offline test, in turn, is a practical task to prove your aptitude under real-work conditions.

18. Transcriptions ‘N’ Translations

The Transcriptions ‘N’ Translations headquarters is located in Miami, but this does not prevent it from hiring remote employees from around the world. The company is known for its partnership with customers such as the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Your desired position and invaluable experience working with key market players are only one test away.

19. Pioneer Transcription Services

Pioneer Transcription Services appreciates a strong knowledge of English or Spanish. And if you can insert timestamps on the screen, your chances of getting a job are doubled. After passing the linguistic and grammatical texts, you will join their base of transcriptionists. You can monitor it daily or from time to time to find which gigs are available to you.

20. Hollywood Transcriptions

Hollywood Transcription offers gigs in the entertainment, academic, legal, and corporate industries. If you want to get a job at Hollywood Transcriptions, you must type at least 65 words per minute. Each employee of the company is required to have a foot pedal, but you can wait to purchase it until after you have received a job offer. The relevant software, in turn, is often free.

21. Quicktate

Quicktate company works with business, corporate, and legal sectors. You will transcribe conferences, voicemail messages, phone calls, and more. Over time, you can be entrusted with the audit, evaluation, and analysis of audio files. Given the specifics of the tasks, Quicktate requires confidentiality compliance, as you deal with personal data.

22. Aberdeen

Aberdeen has beginner-friendly requirements: 45 words per minute, research skills, and computer literacy. If you are fluent in two languages, you will have a competitive advantage in the application process. After getting a position, you will transcribe or caption videos and live programming.

23. BabbleType

BabbleType is engaged in market research and offers its customers transcription, translation, and content analysis services. The company relies on human resources only and does not use machines and other automated tools. To become a team member, be prepared to take the test. It takes up to 3 hours and determines your compliance with BabbleType quality standards.

24. SpeechPad

SpeedPad is a godsend for all beginners. The company offers general transcription jobs, a broad selection of industries, and complete freedom in the work schedule. In exchange for these benefits, SpeedPad requires fluency in English, a typing speed of at least 40 words per minute, and the ability to understand different dialects.

25. Transcript Divas

The main principles of Transcript Divas are accuracy and timeliness. If the client does not receive the ready-made transcriptions on time, they will not pay for the company's services. Given the high standards, you have to prove your fast typing ability and advanced time management skills. But it's worth it. The highest salary of a qualified employee can reach $44.70 an hour. Therefore, there is something to strive for.

26. OneSpace

OneSpace connects employers and employees around the world, providing gigs for a variety of professions, including transcriptionists. The main advantage of this platform is daily payments for each completed task. Therefore, if you are looking for quick money, then OneSpace is the right choice.

27. Take Note Typing

Take Note Typing is a British company that specializes in media transcriptions. You will transcribe focus group surveys, interviews, or conferences. The selection process consists of three tests: typing speed, knowledge of the English language, and transcription quality.

28. Caption Matrix

Caption Matrix is ​​another company willing to hire bilingual transcribers even without work experience. You can work on instructional videos as well as documentaries and presentations. Often a transcriber is expected to complete a task within 24 hours. But since you determine your working days on your own, feel free to take tasks in the evenings or on weekends.

29. RNK Productions

RNK Productions is one of the leading entertainment transcription companies that recruit employees for captioning films, television shows, programs, series, and interviews. RNK Productions gives you the opportunity to create subtitles for media products that will be broadcast throughout the country and abroad.

30. TranscriptionWing

TranscriptionWing provides transcriptions for sectors such as marketing, education, entertainment, and business. The company is loyal to applicants with no experience and is even ready to train promising employees. Like many other companies, TranscriptionWing prefers candidates with strong language skills who are not afraid to transcribe audio with heavy accents.

Conclusions

The position of a transcriptionist is a great start to your career and a valuable source of knowledge and skills that you can take with you to a new professional level. You will learn how to manage your time and attention, gauge your strengths, seek and analyze information, set financial goals, and achieve them step by step—an employee with such talents is worth its weight in gold in any industry. But do not perceive this work as easy money. Remember, your success depends primarily on your responsibility, perseverance, willingness to learn, and focus on results. These qualities will help you make money and build an impeccable reputation that will open up new prospects for you.