Apr 11, 2022
I Failed A Transcription Test Job Application Three Times. Here’s What I Learned.
December 26th — 27th 2021: The ambiance was aglow with cheerfully creamy tartness, punctuated by Christmas crystal bell chimes and carols playing from a portable radio. I felt my optimism lifting itself out of heavy boulders of hopelessness. In fact, my optimism was high to the point that I set out internet searching for jobs again during my Winter Break time (after my disappointing, fruitless search in the Summer-Early Fall of 2021) and found one website that was said to accept 17-year-olds and under-age 18 students as jobs applicants.
My first experience with GoTranscript.com was beginning, and I was determined to succeed in getting a transcription job. I had good reason to try my hardest since no other job site I searched for remote work in the past would even consider people who had less than 18 years of life lived or were about to be lived by new adults who had celebrated their birthdays.
The first step I took was completing a multiple-choice quiz about the GoTranscript guidelines. Guidelines concerning clean verbatim, full verbatim, timestamping, punctuation, the combination rule, source italicization, how to type single-digit numbers versus multi-digit numbers, typing percentages, typing currency symbols (e.g. dollars or quid/euros), among other principles and rules in the transcriber’s toolkit. After a few attempts, I passed it.
Now, I was on to my first active audio transcription! I had the GoTranscript guidelines open in a tab adjacent to the job application test, and I kept referencing those when typing till my fingers were burning with acidity. In it, a woman gave a lesson about the dos and don’ts of transcribing with the company. I had to complete it all in a clean verbatim, non-timestamping format.
December 29th, 2021: I took five or more hours to submit because I was trying to be fastidious in perfecting every period, comma, and word. Finally, 1–2 hours before midnight, I submitted it, hoping for the best.
Soon afterward, I received an email that notified me that the company received my submission and that they’d tell me my status with prospective employment no later than 30 days.
Then, on January 4th, the day I turned 17, I received my birthday wish. Soon, however, I rued wishing for it:
“Hello,
Sorry, but you didn’t pass. You can try again in a few days.
Try rereading the guidelines and practising on an old test where you can see your mistakes.”
The news struck a dull blow like a mallet’s force radiates numb pain down the arms after one accidentally slams their fingers doing a craft project. I was down, but I resolved to move forward, then come back for a second attempt another time that same January.
Of course, I continued my routine of studying for quizzes and assessments as well as keeping up with my academic coursework in the meantime.
January 11th, 2022: Here I was again, slightly typing till my fingers burned with acidity but slowing down even more to check the GoTranscript guidelines and make sure I was catching all the speaker said. I submitted again, days later, to receive the familiar notice:
“Hello,
We have received your test job. Checking of the application can take up to 30 days. You will receive an answer whether you have passed the test or not.
Please wait patiently for the answer. Thank you for applying.”
The next day, the very next day, I got… rejected. That is:
“Hello,
Sorry, but you didn’t pass. You can try again in a few days.
Try rereading the guidelines and practising on an old test where you can see your mistakes.”
On the bright side, that was GoTranscript’s speediest response so far.
On the dim side, an even duller, non-physical pain struck me. I was annoyed at myself. I was beginning to wonder about my potential. Yet, I resolved to try again, and my head told me the following: “If you cannot pass this third time, then you must look for another job.”
Thus, I took the longest break from submitting test applications in all the time I had known GoTranscript.
Then came March 23rd, still 2022: I finally summoned the temerity to send my third attempt at typing out written audio. This time scanned many times for imperfections in this transcribing and learned to cut out stutters, false starts that don’t add valuable information to the speaker’s point, excessive and unnecessary filler words, and more guideline requirements. An anxious specter of the mind dug pits in my body while I awaited a response. This was the longest I waited to hear from GoTranscript, 15 days, to be exact.
I was optimistic, if only dimly, that the longer response time meant I was a serious candidate who just might pass.
Alas, my theory was disproven once I got this email yesterday:
“Hello,
Sorry, but you didn’t pass. You can try again in a few days.
Try rereading the guidelines and practising on an old test where you can see your mistakes.”
April 8th, 2022 (Today, as I am writing this story): I know why GoTranscript declined my application each instance I tried again. I was not prepared the way I should have been. I was not ready. I did not fully understand how to apply certain elements of the guidelines. The frequency of speaker labels for a monologue, when breaking the speaker’s words into several paragraphs of four-five lines, was lost on me. I could not always tell whether the context of the audio file merited keeping or omitting some filler words or not. On rare occasions, I did not always comprehend what the speaker was saying because of the speaker’s tone(s), a possible conundrum with linguistic homophones, so I’d type “[unintelligible]” when there may have been odds that the test submission review team expected me to understand what was actually said. Such a problem came even after I played the audio many times over.
I am happy despite not achieving the outcome I thought I was capable of achieving. This experience has taught me to think again, then think again about what I’ve thought again, then continue thinking again and again and again because thought motivates action, motivates reaction, and motivates a different action. Thought and self-reflection are one of the few consistencies of life alongside more certain aspects of being alive such as learning and uncertainty itself. This experience has taught me to know when to persist but to not persist in not knowing. Not knowing when to pause, seek other opportunities, or let go of a chapter.
Not knowing what mistakes were made. Not knowing why one’s failures happened.
Being rejected reiterated to me that there is always a skill I haven’t mastered yet. That competence is relative to the person judging themselves. Regardless, when others are to assess them, that competence might be exposed as lacking. In my case, being competent and becom-petent (my portmanteau for becoming more competent) are two polar opposite concepts. One is a present stage, a height of personal quality, another an aspiration, a height climb.
Though it may not benefit me to mention this experience on a job resume considering that I did not get accepted, it is an experience in the real world beyond school. An event that has, hopefully, bettered me.
- This experience is another self-evident sign I need to be a more frequent reader to reap the brain benefits and process information more efficiently.
- I have discovered that even in skills I feel confident in, I can always enhance them just as I can areas of less confidence. I thought myself an able writer who understood the nuances of writing and the rudimentary principles before my mistakes showed me some writing-heavy fields centered on diminutive details less typically noticed. Transcribing is one of them.
- I am better equipped to handle disappointments/failures, then pivot: develop a strategy, re-strategize after this adventure. This will benefit me well in adulthood. Life is rife with disappointments. However, that means life is also ripe for growth no matter the age of the person living it.
I am humbled and honored to have had this opportunity to compete and fail. I anticipate there will be many more opportunities much the same, and opportunities where I will succeed and accomplish my aim.
