How to Transcribe Interviews?
Did you ever need to make an interview transcription and had no idea how to do it? What if we told you we know the best way to save you time and boost your efficiency? It’s Transkriptor!
1. Upload your Interview.
We support a wide variety of formats. But if you have any file that has a rare and unique format, you should convert it to something more common like mp3, mp4 or wav.
2. Let Us Transcribe Your Interview
Transkriptor will automatically Transcribe your interview within minutes. When your order is done, you will receive an email informing that your text is ready.
3. Edit and Export your Text
Login to your account and list completed tasks. Finally, download or share your interview transcription in any format you’d like.
Interview Transcriptions: Why Should You Try It?
Perhaps you are still not convinced that it is necessary to make transcriptions of interviews. It is possible that you are correct, depending on the content and purpose of the interviews that you conduct. Let’s take a look at the possible outcomes of this situation.
Why Should you Transcribe Interviews as a Company?
Interviews are a big part of what you do, no matter what your industry is. It’s common for employers to interview applicants, while researchers interview experts, subjects, and others.
As a company, doing interview transcriptions will save you a lot of time and money. A lot of companies are now using AI to make interview transcriptions.
1. Transcriptions Make Things Easier for The Interviewer
Firstly, the interviewer will be able to focus on the interviewee much more. Taking notes and conducting the interview at the same time increases the risk of making errors. Therefore, allowing the interviewer to focus on only one task makes sure that the candidate is given more attention.
This means much better accuracy in terms of selecting employees. Which company wouldn’t want such an upgrade?
2. Using Transcriptions Helps Avoid Errors and Discrepancies
The details of the interview are recorded, so if there are any discrepancies or errors in what is being said, they can be addressed immediately.
Having interview transcriptions allows for less room for error and easy reference back to what was said. All details are included in transcription, which can be helpful when looking up an interview that was recorded a long time ago.
3. Interview Transcriptions Increase Accessibility for All HR Members
Thirdly, normally other HR members do not directly see or hear the interviewee. But when there is a transcript of the job interview, it is easier for other HR members to decide on the best candidate. This way, they can avoid biases and make better decisions.
4. Written Transcriptions Provide More Data For Analysis
You may also be a researcher who uses interviews frequently. It would benefit you greatly to have interview transcriptions.
As a researcher, your goal is to look for patterns in a pool of qualitative responses. However, one of the major drawbacks of qualitative interviews is that handwritten notes are not easily turned into numbers. But the patterns between the focus group and the test group and recurring themes in the interviewee’s response are easy to identify.
So, when conducting qualitative interviews, recording and transcribing will be a huge help for you. Many qualitative researchers want to turn their qualitative data into quantitative data.
Qualitative data can be analyzed easier with text files rather than oral history. Themes, categories, and patterns will become more visible in a good transcript.
We hope that we were able to provide you with some possible benefits of making interview transcriptions. But how actually will you make interview transcriptions? Which transcription tools and transcription processes should you use? Let’s find out.
What Is The Best Way to Transcribe Interviews?
It is possible to do interview transcriptions in a few different ways. Depending on your needs, you can transcribe it manually, use automatic software, outsource it to an agency, or hire a freelance transcriptionist to do it for you. Let’s take a look at each one of them one by one:
1. Using Automatic Transcription Software
Automatic transcription software is not perfect, but they are good enough. They are accurate enough to provide an insight into what is being said in the interview. And they are cheap enough that you can have an interview transcription for just a few cents.
They work best if one speaker does most of the talking and the interviewee doesn’t mumble or make a lot of weird noises. The software can’t always identify the speaker, so you’ll need to edit the transcript to make sure it’s accurate. But it’s a cheap and quick way to get interview transcriptions.
2. Doing the Transcription Yourself
If you are looking for accurate transcription, then you might want to try manual transcription. It is the most accurate type of transcription, but it is also the most time-consuming.
Manual transcription is a good option for those who have a lot of technical content or more than 2 speakers. It’s also a good option if the interviewee has a strong accent or speaks very quickly. That’s because it would be really hard for the software to decipher speech with heavy accents.
There are some drawbacks to manual transcription though. The first one is that it takes a long time to make interview transcriptions because the transcriber has to listen to the audio file and type what they hear at the same time.
The second drawback is that it’s hard to understand what different speakers are saying in interviews, especially when there are strong accents involved. So it can be difficult for them to keep up with all of the words being said without any mistakes.
If it’s your first time transcribing a file, you likely won’t get a high-quality output. In addition, your typing speed will be a lot lower than a professional transcriber.
Only writing out all you hear on a Microsoft Word file can seem like the most practical way to you, but professionals usually use equipments for this type of task. This in part explains why their pricing plans are high. Wasting time with page numbers and headers is not something transcribers would tolerate.
3. Sending The Interview To a Transcription Agency
Sending your file to an interview transcription service is a good idea if you don’t know the language of the recording, or if you want better accuracy.
Transcription companies are very experienced in transcribing interviews, and although they are pricey, you can be sure that you will get a good quality output. You can also request different modes of transcription like verbatim transcription and smart verbatim transcription.
4. Hiring a Freelance Transcriptionist
Finding a good transcriptionist is not easy, but hiring someone remotely could be an option for people that need help with transcribing audio to text.
If you find the right freelancer that can translate your audio file into text accurately and in less turnaround time, it might be worth the compromise of giving up the convenience of working with an agency.
There are many self-taught transcribers out there that offer very affordable rates. They are usually significantly cheaper to hire than an interview transcription service. Establishing a reliable relationship with a freelance transcriptionist does, however, take time and testing, which can be costly.
For those willing to put in the extra effort, finding freelance translators for this specialized service shouldn’t be too difficult. Search sites like fiverr.com can help users find high-quality work. Do your research in advance to avoid being stuck with someone underqualified.
Transcriptionists with experience research prior projects before quoting rates or signing up for them to determine how much work is required. All you need to do is send your audio recording, and let the freelancer do the rest. You must make sure that the audio quality is above average.
Keep in mind that transcribing an hour of audio usually takes 4,5 hours. The transcriber will play the audio on her audio player, and try to have a grasp of it before even starting to transcribe it. So don’t wait for the result immediately.
How To Transcribe An Interview Manually?
Time needed: 10 hours.
- Listen to the recording first. Listen to the audio before beginning any transcription of it, not just the beginning. It’s better to get an idea of what you are dealing with so that you can accurately transcribe. Familiarize yourself with both the speaker’s names and if more than one person is speaking, who is speaking what at any given time.
- Gather Your Tools. You will need a computer. You might also need a text editor for typing the words coming from your transcript. If you have your headphones and software that has the word processor and text editor feature besides them, you are ready to go.
- Write a Draft First. Because the goal of the first draft is to construct the skeleton of the transcript, don’t obsess too much about writing grammatical sentences or spelling correctly. The point of the first draft is only to start.
- Use Shorthand Notation. When writing, some people like to use the acronym ‘DESO’. DESO stands for “doesn’t ensure a successful outcome.” Other repetitive phrases, like “you know,” can also be represented by just one or two letters.
- Proofread. You should make sure that the original dialogue is valid and that you have corrected the mistakes you made while writing. You should not include filler words or stutters on your final text. In addition, mind the punctuation. It’s important to reflect the pauses to the text by using points and commas.
- Format your Transcript. You should format the transcript so that it will be easy for you to read and make sense of. Arrange the visual features like type size and font.
How Do I Get an Interview Transcription Automatically?
It is possible to get an interview transcription in 4 steps:
- Prepare Your Recording File. Check if the software of your choice supports your interview file. If not, convert them using a file format converter. If you are conducting a remote interview, you can record the meeting inside any program like Zoom or Skype.
- Upload Your File to The Software. Upload your audio or video file and adjust the settings. Tell the software about the transcript format you want.
- Edit Your Final Text File. Proofread and fix any mistakes in the software. Edit the timestamps. Playback the video recording in real-time to see if you haven’t missed anything.
- Get Your File. Download your file and use it however you want! You can export it as SRT since there are time codes.
As you can see, the process is much shorter than getting the transcript by hand. ıf you were to take notes for yourself, it would take a few hours at the least. So it would be a great choice to look for a nice transcription software. And you’re lucky, since Transkriptor is one the best!
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. To make things easier for the interviewer
2. To avoid errors and discrepancies
3. To increase accessibility for all HR members
4. To have cleaner data for analysis.
It really depends on which path you are going to take. If you hire a freelancer transcriptionist, you may face an hourly rate of $15 to $30. This number also depends on the features of the audio. The things that make it harder and longer to transcribe can increase the cost of your transcription.
If you don’t want to deal with independent transcriptionists and would rather work with a transcription agency, the cost increases. They usually charge about 1 to 1.5 dollars a minute, which adds up to 30 to 60 dollars per minute.
1. Using Automatic Transcription Software
2. Doing the Transcription Yourself
3. Sending The Interview To a Transcription Agency
4. Hiring a Freelance Transcriptionist
On average, a person who doesn’t have much transcription experience would turn 1 hour of recorded speech into text in 5 to 6 hours.Though, the duration can differ largely based on different factors. These include things such as the quality of the audio file, the amount of background noise, and the presence of heavy accents. It’s also important to take into consideration the presence of any special requirements such as timestamps. For the most challenging tasks, the duration of transcription can rise to 6-7 hours.
When it comes to experienced transcriptionists, they can transcribe recordings a little faster than regular people. They can transcribe 1 hour of recording in 3 or even 2 hours. In fact, some very speedy transcriptionists can finish the job in 20-30 minutes. Though you shouldn’t expect this amount of speed from any transcriptionist.
Automatic transcription services are lightning-fast in transcription compared to humans. A software can transcribe a 1-hour long recording to text in only 15 to 30 minutes. We believe that it’s clear which option is the best in terms of speed.
If you were to use automatic software, you can limit your cost to about 10 dollars a month. This means that this option is cheaper than the manual transcription options by a huge margin.
In short, in terms of both cost and speed, the automatic software comes in first. However, there are other metrics at play. For instance, in terms of accuracy software can never yield the same result as an actual human being. Even though you can get the results a lot faster with a lot less money, you would need to double-check the final text. But even though the fact that this would make you do some extra work, an automatic software is the best option to choose considering all the factors.
