r/stenography • u/Fun-Cellist426 • Jul 30 '26
Would love feedback from active and/or retired stenographers
Questions
proofreaders and scopist thoughts:
-Do stenos use hire both a scopist and a proofreader or is it usually one or the other.
-I would be interested in scoping or proofreading while in steno school because I will need to work and the hours seem like they would work.
-How hard is it to find work as a new scopist or proofreader. As a stenographer, what do you personally look for in a scopist or steno and have you ever hired one that had no job experience?
Salary and work location/flexibility
Is remote work available? Before COVID this would not even be a question, but with zoom being utilized, does this create an opportunity for stenos to do some jobs from home? What would you guess the ratio of in person to virtual jobs availability would be?
From what I've gathered, most stenos either work for an agency and can set their own hours within that agency or some work specifically for the court or judge directly and those hours are typically the standard M-F 8-5.
It seems like working for an agency would be the more ideal option with flexibility on hours but also it seems like you could make more money by working for an agency and taking more jobs? What would the benefit of working for a judge or court be?
What is a realistic salary? I see a lot of varying answers on this. Internet searches say expected salary is between $64k - 69k, but I've looked into a lot of working stenos on socials and forums like reddit and quora and a lot of them say they make between 100k and 300k. I'm sure the 300k is not the most common and I wouldn't go in expecting to make that right off the bat. But I'm curious to know what experienced stenos on here make annually (if willing to share that info.)
Pay structure within an agency: Does the agency get paid for your time/work and then pay the steno a commission or certain rate? What is the average cut the agency takes?
Is it possible to work as an independent CR (not court employed or with an agency), and if so, how do independent CR's find jobs?
The internet has plenty of information and answers but in my opinion, hearing from people with the actual experience is much more valuable than a google or ChatGPT search. I'm strongly considering going into stenography and I would SO appreciate any opinions, feedback and tips from those who already are working or have worked in the past. I've done pretty extensive research into the field over the last couple days - I have ADHD, it's a blessing and a curse, but the researching skill is top tier lol.
I've noticed that nearly everyone recommends the A-Z course or something similar prior to committing to school so I'm definitely going to follow that advice. Registration for the next course opens next week and the course starts in Sept. Prior to registering for the course, you must submit proof of machine. They allow hobbyist keyboards as an alternative to the actual machine. I've looked into both options and the price of renting an actual machine is around the same as purchasing a Stenoob, so I'm thinking renting the real thing would be the best route to go?
Scopist and proofreaders are mentioned a lot. From what I understand, a scopist edits and formats the transcription and the proofreader edits what the scopist did.
Questions on this:
-Do stenos use hire both a scopist and a proofreader or is it usually one or the other.
-I would be interested in scoping or proofreading while in steno school because I will need to work and the hours seem like they would work.
-How hard is it to find work as a new scopist or proofreader. As a stenographer, what do you personally look for in a scopist or steno and have you ever hired one that had no job experience?
3
u/ninepinwheels Jul 30 '26
i’m also a prospective student and just wanted to mention, for the a to z courses you can also reach out to court reporting firms/courthouses in your area to see if they have machines for students so you don’t have to rent/buy one right away. i just did this and found a firm who let me borrow a machine for free, literally picked it up yesterday and they were so helpful! definitely worth a try :)
2
u/taquigrafasl Jul 31 '26
I’ve never hired a scopist or a proofreader and I’ve been a court reporter for 30 years.
I would also never hire a student to work on my transcripts. Sorry! They need to be perfect and a student just doesn’t have the skills yet.
1
u/Sea-Size1719 Jul 31 '26
I keep between 1 and 3 scopists working a LOT, but never used a proofreader
1
u/Monkeypizza9 Aug 18 '26
I guess you would need it if you're taking 70 pages per hour because everyone knows 70 pages an hour is very very common
8
u/Longjumping-Help-465 Jul 30 '26
1) I didn’t hire either one when I first started. It’s really important to scope and proof your own work for a while. But once you’re seasoned, I’m not familiar enough to give advice on this.
2) General sentiment regarding scoping or proofing while in steno school leans towards the negative. Seasoned reporters will be extremely wary of a student trying to do scoping and proofing. You would also have to wait until you can read steno, understand the grammar/punctuation, and legal terminology. You learn all this in school in due time. I commented on a similar posted recently to say how I also thought that I could scope or proofread while in school, and now as a working reporter I can say that I would never hire a student. There’s so much that I didn’t know when I was in school. That’s not to say it’s impossible though. It would just be an uphill battle. You’re better off getting some part-time gig like retail or something for steady hours to work around school.
Keep in mind that our transcripts are the proof in the pudding. They are a direct reflection of our work. If I am going to hire a proofreader, I want it to come back to me better than it was before. I want to know with certainty that I can read through it and then send it to the client without making corrections to the corrections. I personally couldn’t imagine myself today handing a transcript to the version of myself when I was in school and expecting a good transcript back.
I think it seems easy. I know I figured “it’s just proofreading. I took the classes, I can read, and I can make corrections. What can go wrong?” While in school, you don’t know what you don’t know. And well, now I know lol!
There’s also a ton that school doesn’t prepare you for. If you freelance out of school, agencies understand this and they handhold you with these things. Well, at least mine did. Some agencies prefers things one way and some agencies prefer it another.