What Are Remote Transcription Jobs? Everything You Should Know (2024)

When it comes to flexible work, remote transcription jobs offer fantastic opportunities to work from home, often on a schedule that works best for you. If you have excellent grammar and spelling skills and fast fingers (i.e., you’re a swift and accurate typist), remote transcription jobs offer a great way to work flexibly from home.

Most remote transcription jobs require specific, up-to-date technology that can vary from one employer to the next, as well as a dedicated, quiet workspace. If working in a transcription job appeals to you, dive in and learn more about the best 100 companies for flexible transcription jobs, and what it takes to succeed in this robust job sector.

What are remote transcription jobs?

Stripped to its essence, transcription involves transferring spoken words into a written document format. Online transcription jobs can offer real flexibility, often allowing you to set your own hours and choose your own workload—as long as you meet employer-set deadlines and standards. You can find transcription work across a range of industries, and if you’re fluent in a second language, you may even find a job market for transcription work that capitalizes on your language skills.

Transcription work can be done across several technological platforms. A partial (but by no means complete) list of transcription platforms includes: audio or video transcription; dictation transcription; time-stamped transcription; and digital transcription, including podcasts.

What skills and equipment do you need to qualify for remote transcription jobs? It depends on the position and the employer, but here are some of the basics:

• A late-model computer
• High-speed Internet
• Noise-cancelling headphones
• Online research abilities
• An at-home office or dedicated quiet workspace
• Ability to type fast and with a high degree of accuracy
• Familiarity with MS Word, Word Perfect, or similar programs

In some cases, specialized certifications may be required, such as acertified shorthand reporter’s license. Or, you may be required to have experience with software transcription programs like Express Scribe or other foot pedal-controlled digital transcription programs.

Companies Hiring for At-Home Transcription Jobs

Here’s a sampling of some of the companies in the FlexJobs database that are hiring for remote transcription jobs. Keep in mind that this curated list represents just some of the employers that are hiring transcriptionists:

• VIQ Solutions
• Esquire Deposition Solutions
• National Capitol Contracting
• LanguageLine Solutions
• ANP Transcriptions
• Transcription For Everyone – TFE
• GMR Transcription
• Phoenix MedCom
• Internal Revenue Service – IRS
• Appen
• Telenotes

Types of Available At-Home Transcription Jobs

Depending on your background and training, you can find remote transcription jobs across a number of industries, including these:

• Law Enforcement. Law enforcement-related remote transcription jobs may involve transcribing police interrogations, or other law enforcement interviews.
• Medical Transcription. As a medical transcriber, your duties may including taking down medical diagnoses and patient treatment details, or transcribing physician notes.
• Entertainment.This fun category can involve transcribing and captioning TV or radio shows, podcasts, news programs, talk shows, or even song lyrics.
• Business and Finance. Companies of all sizes use transcription services to document events like board meetings, annual shareholder meetings, conference calls, and other business-related transactions.
• Legal Transcription. Courts, law firms, and other legal professionals hire transcription services not just for in-person transcription, but for remote transcribing of court testimony, pre-court depositions, and other legal interactions.
• Academia.In this role, you may be asked to transcribe lectures, academic presentations, seminars, or research-related work from gatherings involving students, professors, and others in the academic field.
• Foreign Language Transcription.This specialized service is often used to translate audio from English to a second language or vice versa. You’ll need to be fully fluent in both languages involved in the transcription.

Find Open Remote Transcription Jobs

The Outlook for At-Home Transcription Jobs

The job outlook for at-home transcription positions can vary depending on the industry. For example, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the employment outlook for court reportersis projected to grow 3% from 2016 to 2026. (Note: the statistics don’t break down at-home court reporters versus in-court transcribers.) For professionals with language translation skills, the jobs outlook is especially promising, with a growth projection of18% through 2026.

However, while demand for court reporters and language-based transcription is strong, the job outlook for medical transcriptionistsindicates less demand for this specialty. Federal projections from 2016 to 2026 showed a 3% decline in demand for medical transcribers, due in part to technological advances in how medical transcription is done.

Demand for At-Home Transcription Jobs

There’s healthy demand from employers looking to fill flexible remote transcription jobs. The FlexJobs database lists positions for full-time, part-time, and short-term transcriptionists.

These flexible positions range from entry-level transcription jobs that sometimes provide on-the-job training, to specialized remote transcription jobs for professionals with several years of experience that may require special language skills or familiarity with technology such as captioning software programs. Almost all employers that hire transcriptionists look for people who can turn around work under tight deadlines, with a minimum of errors.

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