speed tips

• Old timer here with no VR experience. SM - clueless re VR
  • With your experience, why don't you try QA? - Just a thought.
  • Thanks to all. Which companied hire part time for VR? SM - clueless re VR
    • TTS - nm
    • DeVenture might. nm - Pondering
    • oops, make that which companies? nm - clueless re VR
  • I do VR full time... - mg
    • Speed tips on VR - Charlene
      • speed tips - mg
    • Training - mtme2
    • VR - McFingers
  • Some love it and some hate it. I guess it all - mt2

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I recently started VR editing in Editscript 8.  Im using the alt-k and alt-shift-k options...slowly.  LOL  What seems to slow me up is adding in commas and such, which those options don't seem to help with.  Anyhow, after three days I am at a blinding speed of something like 220 lines an hour.

Anybody have any tips to increase ease and speed, or does it just take time, or does it never happen! 

there are no more posts defending your tips for a resume.  You should be ashamed of yourself exposing applicants in such a way on this board.  This company you represent is definitely off my list.  What a scam.  You couldn't even post the link correctly, yet you are on here giving tips for resumes. 

These MTSOs are a dime a dozen...  I did read on your website that you always hire the best MTs, but I guess you fall short on recruiters, huh? 

Either that or my QA person is moonlighting and working at #2 on the side.

Unbelievable.

I found that I had to be mean.  No, I cannot babysit, take you places, loan you money etc..... I am working....... I found family to be the worst.  The husbands and significant others think they are exempt from this.  Call a million times a day.  Honey do you want to go..... with me and it is always during working hours.  They have odd working schedule and do not understand we have to work set hours.  I got a lot more done when I started being firm with people.

We use dial up so of course the phone is always busy but they are not afraid to use the cell phone.  Be firm and stick to your guns.  I found the best thing was having set hours because otherwise the DH wanted me to go everywhere with him on his days off.  I wonder how they would feel if the situation was reversed. 

Good luck to you

Lisa

(Not sure if this is best board for my message but here goes.)

Am just a small business MTSO owner who posted a couple IC work opportunities on the job board the other day.  No problems there.  Had absolutely tons of responses and appreciate every person that sent a resume.  We're evaluating some very good candidates as a result of the ads and appreciate the MTStars boards for this venue.

However, after seeing the quality of resumes we received I just feel the need to give out a bit of advice to those MTs who are pasting resumes into their email response in hopes of getting a call back from an employer with a job opening.

A lot of resumes we received were clearly written and easy to read at first glance (those are the ones we kept).  However, most were not.

Because of this I’d like to offer a few resume tips to new and seasoned MTs when sending an email resume through the email pasting process.

Again, the purpose for my post is just my opinion and to alert some MTs that their resumes were so horrible to read, so completely convoluted and jumbled up that it would take days to decipher/separate the MT/transcription skills from the past employment, unrelated past jobs, and skills useless to transcription work, etc. 

Also, with the resumes we received over the past few days it was really hard to get through most of them to find out which sender had the best match with the skills we were looking for.  I've utimately had to just delete a lot of them because of not clearly seeing that from the paragraphs that went on and on, naming everything kind of work experience they ever had that is totally, completely, and useless when applying for this kind of work.

There are really good reference materials out there for doing a resume, but I have to say most of those setups are for job resumes that get printed and do need to have some relevant paragraphs relating to the job they're applying for.  These transcription positions are a completely different situation.

Therefore, I'd like to humbly offer my MTSO two-cents worth of advice to folks pasting resumes:

1) Resumes should never use the word I in any part of the resume.  It's not a letter, you should not refer to yourself in the first person.  Your resume is almost supposed to read like a 3rd party presentation.
2) Get rid of absolutely anything on that resume that is irrelevant to the type of transcription work for which you are applying. 
3) Get rid of old job listings.  No MTSO can possibly care that 10 years ago you worked at Burger King!
4)  Make LISTS of skills -- bullet, dash, arrow, anything to highlight your skills so the reader can quickly skim through that list.
5)  DO NOT write paragraphs as a mixture of employers, experience, and skills.  It's just too hard to read through those.
6) Please dont list E-V-E-R-Y course you ever took in your MT training program.  We don't care!  If you completed a training it's hoped you had those courses.  And, these course names don't take the place of experience.  Just don't do this. 
6) You don't have to list E-V-E-R-Y piece of computer equipment and reference marterial you own.  MTSOs assume you have the needed gear when you apply.  You might list a few to validate you have what the MTSO requires, but again make it a short list not a paragraph.  
7)  Applicants should send a resume that first of all is a match for what experience the job post says it's looking for.  Ortho is ortho, ENT is ENT, psychology is psychology (not psychiatry), and so on. 
8)  Past employers are extremely important; however, when applying for work via email I wouldn't list any of them at all at first.  If the employer is interested they will let you know that they would like your references. 
9) Best test for your resume:  Paste your resume into an email and send it to yourself.  You will see how you come across

CONCLUSION:  Most MTSOs just want the facts, Ma'am. 

In my opinion, a short and sweet resume is the best way to help an MTSO manager make a decision in determining if an applicant has the skills needed for the type of work they need help with, then to encourage that call back to the MT for the next step--work/test, whatever the MTSO hiring process is. 

I would like to encourage MTs to think about fixing up their resumes.  To that end, I’ve gone ahead and humbly posted a link to a sample bare-bones resume format that works very well when pasting into emails. 

Hope this is of some help to anyone who wants to improve their resume appearance and ensure a better response to their online email job applications.  Hope this is of some help out there.  It’s not all the answers and solutions, but again just my thoughts. 

Here’s the link to the document, it is just from my website.  Just click on the link below -- or paste into a browser address bar and press ENTER -- the file should automatically open in Word.

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2032565/i/SAMPLE_RESUME_SETUP.dmt.2008.doc

I’d be happy to answer any emails regarding this.  Marcia - Data-Med Transcription, Inc.  (http://www.data-mt.com)

How can I best start "cleaning up" a copy of my beloved PRD for DOS  to make for a less-hassle conversion to Shortcut for Windows?  Many of the headers in my PRD have special DOS characters for bolding, and I don't think they will be useable.   For many of my glossary entries, I use slash marks (i.e., cad/ for coronary artery disease).  Are the slash marks a problem in Shortcut?  If so,  what's a good character to substitute (a "q" maybe??).  Thanks for any suggestions.  I'm trying to make this conversion in a month just a tiny bit sane.

X

I am posting to ask my fellow MTs for some tips/hints/advice/suggestions.

I'm starting a new position tomorrow which uses the Meditech platform.

Yes, I know MediTech is rather antiquated, clunky, and a general pain.  It's the version where one cannot type into Word and paste into MediTech; everything has to be typed directly into MediTech.

It's been EONS since I've used MediTech and I'm going to be very rusty.  Does anyone have any quick tips, hints, or refreshers they can throw my way to make my transition back into time a bit less stressful? 

I appreciate anything you guys can offer

Does anyone know if this is compatible with Word 2007?

Thank you (as always).

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Moderator

I just got sold to them and my friend has given me a lot of words of warning.  Anybody have any suggestions on survival? 

Reading this board, I am being disabused of the notion that I am any good at MT at all.  Been at it about 15 years and I'm a part-timer; always have been.  I came to it when I was over 45, as a retirement job.  

I don't get to use a lot of templates or normals, so this is not a factor.  On a good day, with really 'clean' dictations (good sound quality, clear dictator who is not constantly correcting himself) not having to spend a lot of time looking stuff up and with the wind at my back, I can produce maybe 250 lph for 2-3 hours.  I always thought this was pretty good.  Then I get fatigued and drop to 200 or so.  With really bad dictators/sound/subject matter, I get as low as 150.  I believe my knowledge and accuracy are good, but obviously my speed sucks. 

On this board I am seeing claims of sustained speeds of 300-400 lph or more.  So I'm thinking that maybe VR could actually IMPROVE my production. And as my company seems to be phasing this in ,account by account, I will soon have the opportunity to see for myself.   

I would like to take an informal survey of speeds and VR vs straight transcription.  Anybody willing to weigh in on this subject?

I can't help with that as when I fix the voice through Express Scribe it stays that way.

10 cpl is more than I make, but I'm pretty fast.  My base rate is 7.5 to 8 cpl depending on which of my 2 accounts I'm on, but since I do enough lines daily to qualify for bonus, I acutally make  9 to 9.5 cpl per line.  I average about 1500 lines per day.  Production is what drives pay, so that's why I'm making what I do.    I think it's unfortunate that years of experience isn't really compensated in this business, but years of experience doesn't always equal what the employer wants, which is speed and low error rate.  Everyone brings a different set of skills to the job.   In the end it's what you produce and not how many years you have behind you that the employer cares about.   Fair or not, that's the nature of this business.   

As I mentioned before, I am struggling with speed.

I am curious what most people start out typing (LPH) and how quickly you increased to your max (many mentioned they are 200-300+) lph.  Anyone who will share on this?

I appreciate it!

Well, with the Chartnet platform it is possible to get good line counts.  The problem is there isn't any work at this company.  They have lost a lot of accounts!  There is so little work and so many MTs that you will barely get the minimum line count!!!  

And if your facility is outsourcing to them or you think (or have been told) that you will have a primary account that nobody else will be typing THEY LIE!!!

There are so many MTs that need work that they will be given access to your account!!!!  You will slowly watch your work go away!!!

After leaving this company because of no work I wish you much luck...You are going to need it!!!