Additional Information
Closed captioners must be fast and accurate typists.
Supervisor Chris Leininger says 40 words per minute is an acceptable keyboarding
speed. But you'll also need strong computer skills.
"Words per minute matter, but you get really good at hitting the keys to
make it fast-forward, stop and rewind. Being really familiar with computers
is tremendously helpful."
A degree in English, linguistics or secretarial studies is a big plus in
this field, as well as good editing skills.
"In spite of the fact that captioning is the most difficult work in the
reporting-related professions, there's no certification," says Kevin Daniel.
He works for a captioning company in the San Francisco area. "Training has
been almost exclusively done on the job."
General knowledge comes in very helpful in this kind of work. "For what
we do -- offline -- the most important thing is to have really broad experience.
We hire liberal arts majors here because we never know what we're going to
come across.
"Today," says Leininger, "someone was working on a show about canoeing.
[The voice said] 'If you watch inexperienced canoeists, you'll see grommets
crashing up on the shore all the time.'" It turned out the closed captioner
working on the item didn't know how the word fit into the context of canoeing.
"We had 'grommets,' and we were looking for anything else," says Leininger.
They asked around the office, and sure enough, someone was able to solve the
mystery. "Well, it's 'Grumman,' a brand of canoe," he says, chuckling. "The
broader the range of experience you have, the easier it is to pick out this
stuff."