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How to Find the Best Transcription Company to Work For

Whether you’re a new transcriptionist or you’ve completed training and are ready to look for jobs, it’s tough to tell what makes a transcription company “good” or “bad.” Choosing incorrectly can lead to low earnings, minimal flexibility, and frustration – the things that a transcription career should free you from!

So how can you tell which companies will give you a great experience and which you should avoid? Here are some tips.

Decide Which Type of Transcription Company You Need

When you start your search, you’ll notice that there are a few different types of transcription companies. The most common are general transcription companies, legal transcription companies, and medical transcription companies. You will want to make sure you know which of these types you are dealing with, and match your training and experience with the right niche.

If you see a doctor on the home page of a transcription company’s site, you probably need medical background or training to work with them. If you see lawyers or a court gavel, knowledge of legal proceedings and laws is likely necessary. These can help you identify which transcription companies will and will not be a good fit for you!

Dig Into Company Rates

After you’ve found a company that is a good match for your skills, you should find the price on their site. Why? This can help you to get an idea of what you might make working for them. This is crucial because if a company has set rates, you will never make more than that amount – no matter your level of skill and experience!

Generally, if a company has cheaper rates, the pay won’t be much better. If a company charges a customer $1.50 per audio minute, you can be sure that you'll make less than that amount; the company will also take a cut in order to make money. Typically, low-rate transcription companies only pay their transcriptionists about half of the rate they charge customers. That's why it's important to aim for more expensive, high-quality companies (an indicator other than price is that these companies also tend to offer proofreading, editing, and timestamps).

If you need more convincing that cheap companies are not worth working for, you should know that the work they take on actually tends to be harder. These companies prioritize landing many low-rate jobs in order to make their money– which means they close any deal they can get. Unfortunately for their transcriptionists, that means that files are harder to work with. They might be jumbled, full of background noise, too quiet, have overlapping speakers, feature speakers with heavy accents, or be generally hard to understand.

Exploring the rates of transcription companies you’re interested in is one of the most telling ways to determine good or bad. This is vital since a wrong choice is the fastest way to work harder for less money.

Research Reputation

You can find out what it’s really like to work for a company through customer and employee reviews. These may be offered on the company’s website, but you shouldn’t only look there – these are often their best reviews, selected and posted to their site by the company. Get the full picture of workers' experiences by visiting sites like Indeed or Glassdoor, joining Facebook groups about working in transcription, and browsing work-from-home and stay-at-home mom forums. Once you’ve found some sources for research, use it to find posts and comments about the company. This is a great way to find organic and realistic experiences with the company.

Consider Growth

Your career trajectory is dependent on your skill level, so you want a company that will challenge you, nurture you, and help you get better. A bad transcription company is concerned only with getting a transcript done quickly, whereas a good transcription company is focused on readability, accuracy, and overall quality.

If you are pushed to move faster instead of to produce better work each job, you will not grow. In fact, you will only reinforce weak areas and bad habits – which is sure to hurt you when it’s time to get a better job. This creates a vicious cycle in which you can’t make more money since your skillset remains the same. The best way to avoid falling into this cycle in the first place is to invest upfront in training so that you are a competitive, skilled candidate. You’ll be able to identify a good company to work for and land jobs with them from day one.