Saturday, December 24, 2011

First Step: Resume

To get your first contract you don't need to have experience doing transcription work.  It is important that you have good grammar and punctuation skills and your words per minute is ATLEAST 50 or you won't be getting anywhere.  I personally type around a 100wpm.  So applying to these company to work as an IC(going to be using this abbreviation now on for independent contractor) you're going to NEED a resume.  It's not like you're applying for places like Wal-Mart online where you fill out an application on their website and then do your corporate questionnaire.  Applying for these companies you'll be pretty much just sending your resume to a company via email.  Now your resume doesn't need a cover letter and multiple pages and extremely fancy.  Hell my resume doesn't even have references but you at least need a resume.  I don't know if you want to use a resume generator online, I haven't had any luck with those.  Just use Word to make a resume, but if you don't have Word just download Open Office(google it) to make your resume and make sure you export it as .doc.  At the top of the post is my resume that I've extensively blurred out so you guys can't track me down.  The first line my name, next line down is my address, then my address, then my phone number.  All that's centered and then it spaces down a few lines, left aligned is Education then line under that left aligned is the years then centered next to that is the school, my major and my GPA.  Then next section down is another school with the year I went there left aligned and all the school information like the one above that.  Then left aligned under that is experience, under that left aligned is the dates I worked for the first work place I listed and then next line down centered is the name of my work place and then I bullet a few job duties and responsibilities.  And then I do the same for the next three places of work I list, I don't even put down a contact number.  They'd probably have not the greatest things to say about me lol, so why bother, it doesn't hold me back.    Then after that left aligned is references and centered to the right of that is "References available upon request. "  So that's it for my resume section guys, if you need any help with your resume or have any questions just send me a message.  Also let me know if you guys think I forgot anything or if there's anything I should add.

Friday, December 23, 2011

An Introduction

Hello everyone, this is my brand new blog about working from home as an independent contractor doing transcription work.  At first the idea seemed like a dream come true, but it's true.  It was only about a week after I had first heard about doing transcription work from home that I had my first contract.  In this blog I'll be focusing about how to obtain your first contract, the best software to use, networking with the small independent contractors communities and various other aspects of this wonderful career.  Looking forward to reading everyone elses blogs as well.