The Side Hustle Series – The Truth About Transcribing
Transcribing is probably one of the most mentioned "side hustles" online. I saw it several times in articles about weekend jobs and extra income. In 2020, after I finished Peace Corps, I was looking to supplement my teacher income. I decided to give it a try.
Getting started was a long process. After signing up for the website and completing the standard verification process, you must study and memorize all of the commands for the typing software and the codes for recording mistakes in the audio. These include tags to let the transcription company know if something is inaudible or if you must guess a word. There are also codes for what words to cut out, how to record numbers and specific terms, and how to manipulate the audio with the keyboard. Each company has its tags that are slightly different but have the same general functions across the board.
Once you have learned the tags and read all the materials about the company's rules and guidelines, you must take a test. The test I took was 4-6 short audio recordings of different topics and in different accents. It took me between 30 and 40 minutes for each transcription to listen and type, then edit and proofread. To pass the test, you must be, at most, a certain percentage of mistakes in the whole text. Usually, you must score between 93-98% correct to be eligible to work.
Getting started took me about 5 hours to become eligible for the most basic transcription level. Once you have met this goal, you can study for and test for more difficult transcriptions, foreign language transcriptions, and more.
The next step was to wait for jobs to appear on my dashboard. When a job appears, it's first come, first serve, so you must keep the dashboard up and refresh to ensure you get all the jobs. Only one job was available in the two weeks I tried to work. The most accessible level of transcription was saturated with workers. It would be wiser to continue studying and working towards more advanced transcriptions rather than trying to compete for the lowest level.
During this process, I spent two weeks completing the registration and test, looking for jobs, and constantly checking my dashboard. I was offered one job that I still needed to complete because it was demanding audio which took me twice as long as expected. I had to slow down the audio and constantly replay it. The pay was not worth the struggle. After the first job and multiple days in a row of no other work available, I gave up. The income is currently about 15$ per audio hour. While that sounds good, remember that the audio hour is not equal to the work hour. One audio hour translates to roughly four hours of work. I could not earn money in this job and didn't find the time cost worth the pay. It was a net loss for me as I could have spent those hours teaching.
I've read many reviews online of people who had a good experience with various transcription websites. It can be a good job for someone with patience, excellent typing skills, and effortless focus. However, advertising it as an easy-to-start weekend money scheme is dishonest. It would take an investment of time upfront to gain the speed required for this job to be profitable. If you enjoy that job, I recommend it for someone who stays home, has much free time, or can't work for various reasons. If you are willing to make the initial time investment and gain speed, I would tentatively recommend it. However, don't expect quick cash for a few hours a week.
