And recently I came across this article which really caught my attention
As I skimmed through the article I was thinking to myself...
Are these jobs too good to be true?
So I decided that I'm going to test one of them out to satisfy my curiosity.
DISCLAIMER: If your name is Calvin or Patricia and you're reading this, I'm only doing this thing for fun k
Since I did copywriting for a living, I was pretty sure that reading & typing text is no biggie and I will be able to do these menial tasks quite well.
This was when I fucked up as I proceeded to waste 30 minutes of my life in attempting to be a transcriber.
Go Transcript or Rev?
Now the question was to which platform is more suitable for me?Since I have ZERO passion in transcribing, I decided that the most important factor in deciding which site to choose was the remuneration.
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| Go-transcript's transcribing rates |
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| Rev's transcribing rates |
Gotranscript was promising up to $0.60 per minute whereas Rev paid almost twice of them at up to $1.10 per minute of video transcribed.
A switch flicked on within my head and I proceeded to signing up on Rev as a transcribing expert.
And now's the most interesting part..
Han Ren's Foray As A Rev Transcriber
To get started, they ask for really basic information such as name & email
And the reason why I chose to be a captioner instead of transcriptionist is simple - It pays better!
The next part of the application process is that you will need to answer more questions like "How many hours can you work each week" and "Do you have a working headset" etc.
Now there's just one problem.
They made me agree to some P&C thingy which I obviously didn't really scroll through so I don't think I'm legally allowed to screenshot more crucial parts of their application process.
But moving on..
Secondary School Grammar & Writing Test
Yes, you will be required to do a grammar test because this is one of the easiest way to filter out those with bad English proficiency.
So how did I fare?
I'm offended you have to ask that question as I absolutely breezed through the quiz.
The grammar test was in MCQ style so you can easily get the answer as long as you listened during your English lessons during secondary school school..
At the end of the test, they give you the results as you proceed to the next phase
Basic Captioning Crash Course
Actually the learning process is pretty cool because Rev has automated most of it's captioning & transcribing beginner course.
You will learn some nifty tips & tricks about captioning like how to break up captions at ideal timings (when speaker pauses or end of sentence) and how to properly type out atmospheric sounds (soothing music, techno music loudens, etc)
I took down some notes along the way before proceeding to the next section...
How to Use The Captioning Program
Rev has their own in-house online captioning program known as Dash. This is where you can control the video playback, key in your captions & then sync it all up.
Yes, that's the second moment of the night when I felt that I had messed up.
I thought captioning would only entail typing out whatever the person was saying on screen but I had forgotten that you actually have to sync them up too.
Similar to the captioning crash course, there's a couple of videos for you to watch to familiarize yourself with the software before you proceed to the..
Captioning Test
Before you actually start on the test they give you a warning that you must complete it within 3 hours once you click the begin button.
In my head I was thinking, it was going to be a long video for me to caption but to my surprise the video was only 1 minute long.
So why give you 3 hours?
First, I felt that it was because they felt that new practitioners wouldn't be as comfortable in using the captioning tool and secondly...
The video is insanely difficult to transcribe.
Inside the video, we have this guy speaking non stop for 40 seconds. So it's very difficult to catch what he was actually talking about.
On top of that, he was speaking in his TEXAN accent which I had no clue on how to decipher what it was.
And so I decided the best way to pass this test was to actually CHEAT :)
I simply went to YouTube and searched a few keywords the video was mentioning and alas, I found the exact same video that was in the test.
Using YouTube's lastest auto-captioning technology, I was easily able to type out the EXACT captions in the video.
But now here's the big problem - you still have to sync up the captions perfectly to pass the test.
As I started syncing the captions, time flew by and by the end of the test I have taken close to 30 minutes to caption & sync up just a 1 minute video.
I submitted the application and was so mentally drained by the end of the application process
VERDICT: NAY
Here's the breakdown of the time spent on the video
10 minutes: Attempting to caption the video
5 minutes: Searching on YouTube
5 minutes: Copying the captions into Dash
10 minutes: Syncing everything up
I spent a grand total of 30 minutes on just a 1 minute video which means that I would be transcribing video at a $2 per hour rate!
Even if I became pro and could caption & sync videos at half the time, I would be only making $4 per hour!
This means that even the secondary school kid working part-time at mcdonalds is making more money than you!
So you're better off just spending your time on your hobbies or honing specific skill-sets that will improve your job performance at the end of this coronabreak.
BONUS: THEY GOT BACK TO ME
So basically, they didn't want me because of my poor captioning skills and not accurately typing out was being said by the speaker.
Oh well, I guess this is a win-win situation as they won't want to hire a poor transcriber while I have more free time to do what I like.
Time to click on the 'Find Match' button on Dota 2 then.
Stay home & stay safe everyone!
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