Why Typing Speed Is So Important in Transcription Work

3/1/2019

Transcription is one of the largest growing industries in the United States and around the world, at this point. For everyone from full-time transcriptionists, to those who do it in their free time, it can be an excellent way to make money and enjoy a job on your own schedule.

Doing transcription work does require a special set of skills, however, everything from attention to detail to knowledge of the language is important. One of the most important skills, though, is transcriptionist typing speed.

How Fast Do You Need to Type to Be a Transcriptionist

Keep reading to learn more about why typing speed is so important in the world of transcription whether you do it full-time or part-time.

Efficiency Matters

For anybody doing dictation work, the job requires a fair amount of effort to make any real cash. That's because most jobs don't pay a lot of money each word since you're just typing a document.

That means that the ability to type quickly and accurately will improve the amount of money that you make doing the job. You'll also be more efficient if you're working for a client that pays per hour instead of per word, which is becoming more and more common.

Dictation

One of the biggest reasons that transcription services need people who can type quickly and accurately is that not all of the work relies on copying down text from one piece of paper or screen to another. Some of the transcription work people do every single day means typing what you hear being dictated.

Most of these jobs aren't ones where you're sitting in the room with a person though. Audio transcription where you take recordings and work with what already exists is a growing market that many people are working in. From field notes to day-to-day logs, this type of transcription is often essential for busy professionals who need notes and thoughts in written form.

People working in the transcription field need to be particularly fast since most people talk at a fairly fast clip. Without typing skills, so much rewinding and typing would be necessary that the process wouldn't be efficient.

Mahesh Kumar

Mahesh is the spokesperson of the Transcription Certification Institute, a Nashville, TN, based company that provides comprehensive online general transcription training certification courses. This transcription certification course facilitates careers in transcription because it provides a guaranteed internship with a major transcription company upon certification.