Stenographer Job Description
Stenographers, sometimes called court reporters, are responsible for court and medical transcription and live broadcast captioning for the deaf and elderly. They use shorthand and a steno machine to transcribe information and commit it to the public record. They train through certificate or associate's degree programs and must be fast and accurate typists. Individuals who work in the court system must be licensed and professionally certified in many states.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that job growth in this field will be about as fast as average for all occupations through 2022, with the best opportunities for stenographers trained in Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) or those who can go with clients to medical appointments or public meetings to provide transcription services.
|Required Education||Certificate or associate's degree in court reporting|
|Other Requirements||Many states require licensure and professional certification|
|Projected Job Growth||10% from 2012-22 (all court reporters)*|
|Median Salary (2013)||$49, 560 ()*|
Sources: * U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Stenographer Career Info
Stenographers are responsible for transcribing exact legal or medical proceedings for the record. Stenographers are employed primarily by courts and those in the legal profession, because lawyers and court officials need an exact transcript to use during trials. There is no room for error in the stenography profession, and most in the occupation learn to type at 225 words per minute in order to capture entire conversations quickly and accurately.
Each state has different requirements for stenographers, but all states require stenographers to pass examinations to gain their credentials before they are employed in courts. In most cases, individuals must pass a voice writer test with a written portion covering grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Stenographers must learn a type of shorthand, an abbreviated language form that is designed for rapid transcription, to take notes on a steno machine in order to catch each word that is spoken. Once the notes are entered into the machine by the stenographer, they are translated by computer software into English. The stenographer responsible for recording the proceedings takes the rough transcript and proofreads it before creating a final transcript and committing it to official record. Stenographers must have a good grasp of legal and, for some jobs, medical terminology as well as complete proficiency in the English language to do their jobs to employer standards.
According to the BLS, the job outlook for stenographers should be no better than the average for all professions. Court reporting was projected to grow by 10% between 2012-2022. Court reporters with certification were expected to still be in demand, especially in some federal and state courts. Because of growing costs, courts are at times using digital audio recording to replace stenographers, but other markets, such as live captioning for the deaf and elderly, are growing very quickly.