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6 things to consider before hiring a freelance transcriptionist

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Wed, 31 Mar 2021 Source: Kwame Ansah

Transcribing work is generally outsourced by a lot of legal and medical companies and even other businesses. There is a huge requirement in this area of transcription; thus, finding legitimate freelance transcription jobs at Dormzi are easier for people.

However, it can become extremely difficult for organisations to hire numerous people and set up a team. Having in-house transcribers requires professional setup, and it can be extremely expensive. If your organisation focuses only on transcription work and if you are planning to expand your wings in the transcription industry, it makes sense for you to invest in having a team of qualified in-house transcribers.

But if you do not have enough assignments to engage the full-time employees, then the entire investment would become futile. In order to avoid things like these, you are getting help from the freelance transcribers can be an amazing thing to do.

There are several benefits that one gets by hiring freelance transcribers because these people are available in abundance and the freelance market is extremely vast. You can hire them at affordable prices and can get all the work done without any contract.

You need not engage them at all times and can choose to get their services when there is work. As there are so many advantages that one can get from the freelancing services, it is a great idea to be implemented in terms of saving a lot of costs.

As an organisation, it is important that you follow certain tips even before you get into the hiring mode. You can learn more about the tips that are required for you to apply when you are planning to recruit some of the freelance transcribers into your organisation.

Understand the skillset

This is the first and foremost criteria that every organisation must follow when they are planning to hire a team of freelance transcribers. Without understanding the skill set, it is definitely unwise to handover the task. Not all the freelance transcribers that you come across are genuine. There are several ways to tweak a freelance website and create a duplicate portfolio with fake experience. Therefore, it is important to check all the skill sets only even before you proceed to bring an individual or a team for freelancers onboard.

Understand the language skills

Another important thing that every organisation that is into transcription must focus when they are hiring a team of freelancers to check for language skills.

If a freelancer is not competent in the areas of language, then it would be certainly futile in investing in such a person as you might face a lot of loss.

The transcription industry is all about typing and also listening to the instructions that are given by different clients that are placed globally.

Majority of the transactions to happen in English and if the freelancer is not competent, it might become extremely difficult for them to cope with the assignments that are given.

Conduct an interview

As you set a professional interview while hiring the in-house transcribers, a similar pattern can be followed when you are planning to get a team of freelancers into the organisation. It is essential to speak to each and every freelancer even before you bring them to get the assignments done. During the interview phase, you must also remember to create an elaborative questionnaire to test the technical, language, and also other skill sets that are required for them to seamlessly perform the task.

Typing skills

Typing skills is probably one of the crucial skills that are required for every transcriber to develop. There is a deadline for every assignment that gets assigned over to a freelancer, and if their typing skills are not fast, the completion of assignments might get delayed, and it can upset the customer.

Cost

It is also important that you check for the charges of the freelancer. Each and every freelancer has a different pattern of charging the clients, and generally, it is an hourly basis that they charge. However, most of the clients decide upon the payment, and with this control in your hands, you would be able to decide whether you want to make the payments hourly, weekly depending upon the words that are being typed.

Time management skills

It is also mandatory to check for the time management skills of the freelance transcriber when you are planning to get them on board for your organisation.

If the transcriber is not time-oriented, it is unlikely to complete the assignment on time. It’s not just about the quality of work that a transcriber must focus upon, time play a huge role in the world of transcription.

When you follow all the steps without any deviation, you are certainly going to hire a team of efficient freelancers to transcribe all your documents without any issues.

What about transcription services?

If you think that pooling and managing a team of freelancers to work on your transcription requirements might be too much of a hassle on your end, perhaps a transcription service might be the better option for you.

Companies that offer transcription services provide in-house project management so that you’re free to spend your time on your core tasks. In addition, the best transcription services out there have additional certification that the freelancers that you find might not have. This is important if the audio that you need to be described is medical or legal in nature. Medical reports as well as legal documents require certified transcriptionists that take anywhere from 6 months to two years to acquire.

Of course, the downside of getting a transcription service over freelancers is that the cost would generally be higher.

Columnist: Kwame Ansah