Audio transcription from home?

[FuckThatToOneSide]

I'm just wondering if anyone has experience of doing audio transcription from home and has any pearls of wisdom!

I am thinking of taking an audio transcription course through Pitman. The cost is £350, which is affordable for me, but not an insignificant amount. I have some paralegal training and also speak a second language, so would be aiming to find work relating to this.

Any advice much appreciated.

I did this for a while. I didn't do a course, I bought a foot pedal and the ExpressScribe software and applied to an agency who then put me on their training scheme which I did from home and it lasted a few weeks. I was paid a small amount for the transcriptions I did while training and then gradually built up the amount of work I did.

You need :

Very fast accurate typist
Able to follow a format/style
Excellent listening skills comprehension/hearing
Fast accurate typing

You may not need to go on a course.

Hope this helps

I do medical transcription from home, basically the criteria for signing up with my company were 5+ years of senior medical Secretary experience within a specialty and then they gave me access to their dictation online but only for the specialties I can type as I know the terminology, etc

I wouldn't bother with an audio course via pitman, have a look whether there are any companies looking for legal typists and see what their criteria are for getting on the books with them before you spend your money. There is no point in paying for the course only to discover they want x amount of years experience in an office and a reference from a manager.

The main things are

The faster you type (accurately) the more you earn per minute/hour
Always follow their template
Once you've typed a document rewind the audio back to the beginning and double check your work (looking for missed words, spellings, etc)
You'll get faster and more accurate with experience of audio typing, the footpedal is easy to use (I mastered it within a few days of my first audio typing job)
Be aware it is not always a steady source of income - some days there is no new dictation uploaded, other days they send out mass emails saying there is a mountain of typing that needs to be done.

The way I learnt to audio type initially was temping in the nhs, this then led into a secretarial job and I stayed there till I decided to be a SAHM.

It's a really easy skill to pick up, as long as the doctor you're typing has mastered the art of speaking clearly

I am employed part time doing some audio typing from home for a doctor. I briefly tried getting more work over the summer and signed up with two transcription firms.

For one, it was general work (usually interviews with people) and the actual work wasn't too bad. The problem was they'd taken on far too many people. So we were to put our name up on a diary when free and wait to be contacted with work. So I found myself sitting there afternoon after afternoon with no work coming. I enquired and was then sent some. But after that, no work again so I just gave up. They did pay me quite quickly though.

The second one was a medical organisation. They sent me some trial work which was about 8 hours worth of work. The accents were awful and it took absolutely ages to make any sense of it. It was taking me three times as long as it should have just because the dictation quality was so poor. I backed out quickly because I was up til midnight just doing the trial work. They don't pay you for the trial work.

Generally I think it's hard to get enough work and it can take a lot longer if the quality of the audio is poor. Check out some of their websites and see what they're asking for in terms of experience. I didn't find it hard to get signed up but I have been doing medical audio work for a decade now. Neither of the agencies asked for references.

Equipment wise you just need a foot pedal, headphones and some sort of software. I was asked to use Audioscribe by the first lot - which has a free version you can download online. But I find it easier using the Olympus software that came with the foot pedal. You need a pc with virus protection. You need to be a bit savvy with a pc - sometimes the files come in an unexpected format and I'd have to convert it.

Sorry - Express scribe was the package - not audioscribe.

Thanks all for info. That's all really helpful.