In years past when you thought of a transcriptionist you pictured someone with a foot pedal and headphones typing a doctor’s dictation for a medical file.  Although you will still find the headphones (and sometimes the foot pedal), the transcriptionist of today may be typing an interview for a reporter, a college professor’s lecture notes, a teleconference, an investor’s meeting, or a business owner’s personal plans and goals.

Why this change?  Well, for one thing businesses today are more complicated than ever with the advances in technology and the global marketplace.Business owners and executives don’t have time to type their own notes and their assistants don’t have time either.  Add in the phenomenon of corporate downsizing, outsourcing, and companies trying to avoid massive payroll outlays and welcome to the era of the home-based transcriptionist.

Here are just some of the entities who now hire transcriptionists at an amazing rate:

• College/University – professors needing lecture notes typed, doctorate students needing thesis interviews typed, and students have class discussions converted to documents.
• Reporters – reporters from all over the world are hiring out to have their audio interviews transcribed into a word document transcript.
• Legal Profession – audio/video depositions that need to be transcribed for court files, attorney interviews with witnesses or participants.
• Business – there is an almost endless variety of tasks that are now requiring transcription including transcribing investor meetings, board meetings, interviews for history documentation, and personal dictation of strategies, plans or goals . . . you name it, they need it!