A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

job seekers - 2 words - Microsoft Office

Posted: Nov 30, 2012

In case you have not figured this out already, you are probably not going to ever get out of MT into some other office position unless you become proficient in Microsoft Office. I just had an interview and was once again told that I was less likely to be hired without those skills (part of the job is MT; that part they liked).

If you've been doing nothing but transcribing and editing medical reports for the last 20 or 30 years, like I have, it's time to brush up your skills.

A little peice of my resume that I used for a non-MT - job included...

[ In Reply To ..]
I have had to alter my resume a few times over the past year. The job I applied for was an office job that did not require much, but here is part of what I put in the education section of my resume:

"Relevant educational experience includes but not limited to: Keyboarding Speed and Accuracy, transcription, Microsoft Word I, II, & II, PowerPoint, Excel and Office Procedures."

I have much more education than that, but not all of it was relevant to the job I was applying for at that time.

Lucky for me, I am very computer savvy and would assume most MTs are, especially in Microsoft Office.

well I've just never had the need for - Microsoft Office

[ In Reply To ..]
so I haven't used it, but now I know I need to learn it. It's on my computer and I'm hoping all I will need are the videos on Microsoft. Especially Excel. I actually can't stand Word. I think they make it so difficult to make columns and list things and indent. REally could be much easier. I hope I never have to learn Power Point.

Power Point is really easy and fun. You most likely may - never need to use it unless

[ In Reply To ..]
you get a job that will require you to set up or perform presentations. I have always found it to be my favorite one and it was easier to learn than Excel and even Word.

Plus, it just looks good on your resume.

On hoping you never have to learn PowerPoint - Arts and Crafts

[ In Reply To ..]
I think you are saying that because you are intimidated by the name "PowerPoint." Of all the Office programs, PP has to be the easiest and most fun. It is just arts and crafts. I'll bet you have no problem making a sign for a yard sale, doing cross-stitch, or making holiday decorations with your kids, but you are scared of PP--something children love to play with.

PP lets you make, essentially, signs and refrigerator art. You might want a whole bunch in a chain to use in a presentation or you might need just one. It comes with an assortment of background designs and preformatted templates for centering and lining up text. It is very easy to adjust font sizes and bullets. It lets you add pictures.

If I need an announcement for the Christmas party, I can use a title slide and just type in what I want in the text boxes, test several color combinations until I find what I want, and I'm done. Or, I can use a slide that lets me put text and pictures together. If any of the text needs to be bigger, I can adjust instantly. PP will adjust on its own, too.

If you use WP, chances are you don't even imagine how convenient Office products make things. You are used to doing the work of formatting for software that is basically still a typewriter. Word does it for you, which can be annoying until you learn how to work with it and, especially, how to just turn off features that you do not like.

The business world uses Office. If you want a job in that world, you will have to use Office. Where I work, everyone uses it. Managers do their own email, their own Word documents, their own Excel spreadsheets, and their own PowerPoints. Our secretaries and admin assistants are all better at it than anyone else . . . not more scared of it.

I suspect that a lot of MTs who are having trouble finding jobs are unaware of that. They may think that their current expertise in WP or whatever will impress an employer and maybe even get them to switch, but employers really have no idea what your skills are or how to use them. If you cannot function in a Microsoft Office environment, you have little to offer them. They just see a balky, difficult person who does not understand what the employer needs. They do not want that. They especially do not want a refusenik attitude when everyone in that organization except possibly the housekeepers and lawn crew uses MS Office without even thinking about it. It is THE tool to get stuff done.

Is it worth being shut out of jobs because you won't learn anything different or new? The best thing you can do for your career might be to take a course in MS Office.

isn't that kind of what I said? - i mean

[ In Reply To ..]
you started out all positive, and then decided it would be more fun for you to call me balky and difficult. The whole point of my post was that one has to learn Microsoft Office to get a job outside MT, and that is what I said. Yes I am intimidated by PowerPoint, but that doesn't make me balky and difficult.

Yes, it is what you said - Arts and Crafts

[ In Reply To ..]
Sorry, I started off taking about PP but then went into talking about what I have seen in MTs in general. I did not mean to say that you, personally, were balky, but that a reason many MTs have had difficulty is because employers see them that way.

Rereading your post, I see you are not too enthusiastic about Excel. I disliked it until I discovered that a lot of people use it as a word processor. I used it to make an instruction chart on a half sheet of paper. It was incredibly easy to use those boxes ("cells") to lay out my text in a grid . . . 3 columns, comments, titles. I just dragged the cell edges around to make everything fit. Excel is also a great calculator! Much easier to use than an actual calculator, too.

Our local community college has - an excellent series

[ In Reply To ..]
of courses in Microsoft Office programs. I believe there area also tutorials available at the Microsoft website, but I'm not sure whether there is a charge.

Learning MO - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
A lot of libraries, in my area at least, offer free classes in Word, Excel, and Power Point. The go from beginner to intermediate. Maybe check with your local library and see if they offer something like that too?

There are tutorials all over the Internet. I've started - teaching myself Excel and Powerpoint, - msg

[ In Reply To ..]
and enjoyed playing around with both. They're not that hard to learn. But there are 2 problems: One is time - something I have very little of to spare. The other is that if I learn something and don't put it to use immediately, I soon forget it and have to re-learn it.

What about Outlook? - downtime

[ In Reply To ..]
A lot of jobs say they want Outlook experience - all I know about Outlook is that it's not my favorite email system, but apparently there is more to it. What do we need to know about that? Thank you for any information.

Outlook - Arts and Crafts

[ In Reply To ..]
I use Outlook and think it is fine. When you say it isn't your favorite, exactly what about it isn't as good as whatever else you are using?

Something you have to remember about Office is that it is expensive. A lot of the online griping among techies about MS products comes from people who prefer shareware and cheap software because it is less expensive.

Something else to remember is that the versions most people see are limited. The home and student versions and what comes bundled in home computers are not all of it.

Most of the time when people complain about Outlook, it turns out to be a cosmetic difference . . . they prefer the screen layout of their home email or they are used to seeing a preview of each email. So move things or change the settings!

It works well as a business package, integrating features from the other Office components into its email software. It uses most of Word as its word processor, so maybe that is what you dislike, but that is one thing I like--it is easy for me to do what I want.

Yes, it is much more than email. It contains a calendar and scheduling package that is not just a place to write in appointments. It can allow you to see the calendars of anyone in your organization (just what times are occupied and not, unless they grant you access to the actual content) so you can see who is available for meetings, issue invitations, adjust times, etc. When you make changes, it changes their calendar, too. You can link documents and emails right to that.

It contains a diary or work record package, a task managemment package, and some other things. With it, you can organize and manage your own activities and those of others.

Outlook presents my work life to me in a desk blotter fashion, with email, calendar, task list, and appointments all nicely laid out. If you have a lot of things to keep track of, it is very helpful. This is especially true if you work in a large organization or have people to manage.

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