A much sought-after service for which many general transcription firms are currently receiving job assignments is that dealing with interviews. There are many interview scenarios that call for this service and such include business, job, doctor/psychological, teleconferences, journalist, market research, legal, police, and multiple participant interviews.

An interview is a question and answer type of conversation between two or more people conducted to elicit information which would usually be made public. Interviews are conducted in every sphere of life, business, academics, law, medicine, journalism, etc. just to name a few.

Conversion of such interview audios and/or videos into text format is known as interview transcription.

What is transcription? Transcription is the conversion of audio into text. The audio maybe recorded either as audio directly or maybe extracted from a video.

Who requires transcription services? Just about anyone who has audio or video content which they need converted to text utilizes transcription services. This then opens up the entire world as a customer database. People from all walks of life, be it personal or professional, make use of transcription services.

A person who does the transcription is known as a transcriptionist or transcriber. Transcription is a challenging and specialist function requiring specific skill sets and the ability to multitask. All transcriptionists need to have some common skill sets and people specializing in certain industries will need additional industry specific skills.

BASIC SKILL SETS NEEDED BY A TRANSCRIPTIONIST: Enumerated below is a list of the basic skills needed by a transcriptionist.

A transcriptionist is a person who converts audio into text. Transcribers may work independently from home or within an office environment. Transcribers working independently from home are known as freelance transcribers.

COST: Freelance transcribers provide their services at a lower cost as compared to companies providing the same services. Companies obviously will be charging higher due to their additional overhead costs.

What is outsourcing? Outsourcing refers to the process wherein a function which has been performed in-house is being sent out to an external service provider. Outsourcing has crept into all arenas of business.

Why outsource? Companies looking for more productive and cost efficient methods of handling certain business functions often choose to go the outsourcing route while they concentrate on their core competencies.

Transcription is the process of converting audio into text.

Academic transcription refers to transcription related to the field of education.