If you go down the transcribing route, what kind of kit do you have at home?
Do you have a transcribing machine? If not, it will make transcribing very difficult and take you much longer.
And if you have (or haven't and you're going to buy one) is it based on standard audio tapes or digital? Some research agencies (and viewing facilities) are still using standard audio tapes but I think it's fair to say that there is a shift towards digital equipment.
If you haven't got any equipment yet, when you talk to an agency and if they're interested, ask them what they use.
Just to give you an idea of what to expect, most agencies run group discussions that last 1.5 hours. Our typical group will last 2 hours, but we often run groups of 2.5 or even 3 hours. A group consists of a moderator and 8 participants (apologies if you know this, but if you don't it might be useful) - and there is often a tendency for people to talk over each other/interrupt, etc - and when transcribing it can often be quite difficult to pick up all the strands of conversation. And 9 people will usually speak at different volumes, with different accents, etc - so transcribing a group isn't always an easy thing!
As in other fields, there is more and more pressure to turn things round quickly, which means that we are increasingly demanding of our transcribers. So for example, if I sent you a recording of a 1.5 hour group on a Monday I would hope that you could get it back to me by Wednesday.
And often we do groups on Thursday (and sometimes during the day on Friday) so would expect these back on Monday.
So - make sure you have enough time in the evening to do this, and also be prepared to work at the weekend!
Hope this helps. If you want to know more, CAT me and we can chat off board. (We do occasionally do pharma research, but not very often)