This blog is part of a series on transcription. If you haven’t read the other blogs in this series, make sure to check out the summary page for a listing of all transcription blogs.
Now that you’ve graduated, you’ve hit the want ads online, and you may have become a little panicked when you saw that many companies required two years experience, and some even required three or four. This can be extremely discouraging to newbies, and seems to fly right in the face of what I said earlier, that this is a huge work-at-home market, and that you should have no problem getting a job at home. How do you get a job if everyone wants you to have experience?
The secret is where you go to school. This is why I made such a huge deal about MT schools, and why I interviewed Andrews, Career Step, and M-TEC. Medical transcription companies have to deal with the fact that many people think that you just type what you hear, and that this is some great work-at-home job that anyone can do. They receive a large amount of applications from people who have never transcribed a document in their life, and whose knowledge of the medical world stems only from watching ER and taking their children to the ER when they get hurt or sick. MT companies decided that to battle this trend, they would start requiring two to three years of experience from their applicants before they would consider their applications.
What they don’t say is that if you have a degree from one of the schools I mentioned above, they will quite often waive that experience requirement. This only goes so far though–if you are looking at an ad for four years experience, don’t apply if you only just graduated from MT school. They really do want that much experience if they set the bar that high.
This also allows the company to get away with not hiring people who got a degree from an online school that wouldn’t know quality medical transcription if it came and hit them upside the head. There are large schools that charge lots and lots of money, produce snazzy videos to help you learn, etc, and when you graduate, you haven’t a prayer of finding a job. MT companies know that these large schools do not have experienced trainers and teachers, and that the graduates know little to nothing about actually transcribing. So when a graduate of this kind of school applies to a company that has a two year experience requirement, the company can simply point to that requirement and tell the applicant no, without having to hurt their feelings by telling them that their degree could have come from a Cracker Jacks box for all the good it’s going to do them. People get mad when you’re blunt (who knew!) so the MT companies like to be diplomatic and simply post a requirement that they would gladly waive under the right circumstances.
Having said all that, just because you are a graduate of Andrews, Career Step, or M-TEC doesn’t guarantee you a job. The companies will still test you, and you will still have to do extremely well on those tests to get the job. The good news is that a) These companies will actually give you that chance by allowing you to test instead of simply saying no, and b) If you graduate from one of those three schools with a high grade on the final, you will be ready for any employment test that will be sent your way. You will be ready, and you will pass.
While you are looking at ads and trying to make the decision of where to apply, keep in mind my next blog: Bigger is Better…Or Not.