National Court Reporting & Captioning Week Part 3: What would you tell non-reporters about the profession?

National Court Reporting and Captioning Week is being celebrated February 14-20.  The week-long event is designed to celebrate the court reporting and captioning professions and to help raise public awareness about the growing number of employment opportunities the career offers.  In recognition of the outstanding court reporters PohlmanUSA has the opportunity to work with each and every day, we wanted to highlight their responses to questions we posed surrounding their profession.

The third question we asked was, “What would you tell non-reporters about the profession?” Here’s what our reporters said:

If you crave a little variety in your professional life, would like to travel, work your own hours, have a lucrative career with the possibility of reinventing yourself (as a television captioner, recorder of veterans’ memoirs, official or freelance reporter), and work at varied venues regarding different subject matters, court reporting is for you. – Deralyn G

It’s the best kept career secret… an amazing financial opportunity, and the flexibility is outstanding.  It’s never boring. – Julie H

There is a lot of ability to change what you do within this profession, from the amount of hours you work to whether you are employed or self-employed to what kind of work you do (work with criminal or civil cases in a legal capacity or work with the hearing-impaired community or work for a television audience, and more) to where you work (in a courthouse, at home, traveling, etc.). – Kathy W

Don’t be intimidated.  If you have a true desire and will, anything is possible. – Maria S

I would tell non-reporters this profession can be very rewarding, but very stressful also. – Jean P

You will learn about a wide spectrum of topics. – Cindy R

In the freelance world, we have such a variety of cases and locations that your work day is never the same; always something new! – Dawn B

Trying to make your writing perfect is tedious; watch your steno come into your software, define mistakes you consistently make.  Always be positive and smile through mistakes; everyone is human.  Make time to laugh and spend time with important people in your life. Work is not everything. – Beth G

For more information about court reporting, visit http://www.ncra.org/. For more information about starting a career in court reporting, please visit us at http://pohlmanusa.com/.