Typist Job Description Templates for Small Offices
Typist job description templates for small offices: 6 role variants covering transcription, copy typing, legal, and remote work, plus pay and FLSA notes.
Typist Job Description Templates for Small Offices
6 free templates for the offices that still hire typing work: general office, audio transcription, copy typing, legal, remote, and part-time overflow. Download as DOCX.
The first time an owner asked me to help hire a typist, my honest reaction was that the job had stopped existing sometime around the fax machine. Then she showed me the backlog: two decades of handwritten field reports, a filing-season document load her office manager could not absorb, and a partner who still dictated everything. The job existed. The title was just doing a bad job of describing it.
That is the real problem with this posting. The word typist now covers at least three different jobs, and the people who are excellent at one of them often cannot do another. Someone who converts handwriting at speed is not automatically good at transcribing a four-person meeting recorded on a phone across a conference table.
At FirstHR we write hiring templates for owners and office managers who do this without an HR department. The six below cover general office typing, audio transcription, copy typing, legal document production, remote work, and part-time overflow, each with the classification and confidentiality notes that generic versions leave out. More hiring templates sit in the same library.
TL;DR
A typist job description has to name the source material first: audio, handwriting, redlines, or scans. The role is non-exempt hourly in essentially every case, because typing is production work rather than the exercise of independent judgment. The national median is $23.69 per hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Six templates below, downloadable as DOCX.
What a Typist Does Now
A typist produces, formats, and proofreads documents from written, printed, dictated, or handwritten source material. In practice that splits into three separate jobs plus one impostor, and the posting works only when you know which one you are hiring.
The split matters because the failure modes differ. A transcriptionist is bottlenecked on listening comprehension and terminology. A copy typist is bottlenecked on reading bad handwriting without inventing content. A document production typist is bottlenecked on formatting rules and version discipline.
Document production
The literal typist
Someone turns written, dictated, or marked-up source material into finished, formatted documents all day. This is the only version of the job where the word typist still describes the work accurately, and it survives mostly in law firms, clinics, and records-heavy offices.
Transcription
Audio in, text out
Recorded meetings, interviews, dictation, or calls become written records. The bottleneck is listening comprehension and terminology, not typing speed, and the confidentiality exposure is much higher than in general office typing.
Keying and data entry
Different job, different title
If the source is a form and the destination is a database field, you want a data entry role, not a typist. The skills overlap and the pay does not. Posting the wrong one of these two titles is the most common mistake in this category.
Clerical support that includes typing
The title is doing too much
Plenty of postings titled typist actually describe an administrative assistant: phones, scheduling, filing, ordering, and typing. If typing is under half the day, a broader title attracts candidates who will not quit in month three.
Name the Source Material in the First Two Lines
The single most useful sentence in a typist posting is the one that says what the typist will be looking at or listening to. Handwritten field reports from 1998. Dictated clinical notes. Attorney redlines on pleadings. Board meeting recordings with four people talking over each other. Candidates can tell in ten seconds whether that is work they do well, and the ones who cannot do it stop reading. Qualification lists never achieve that.
Is Typist the Right Title, or the Habitual One?
Before writing anything, count how much of the day is actually typing. If document production is genuinely most of the day, typist is correct. If it is under half, you are describing an administrative assistant and the title will cost you candidates rather than attract them.
This is not a style question. The occupation is shrinking: Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections for 2024 to 2034 place word processors and typists in decline, with roughly 2,200 openings a year nationwide. The people who do the work now often call themselves something else, so a title mismatch narrows an already narrow pool.
If the day is mostly...
Post this title instead
Why it matters
Producing documents from drafts, dictation, and redlines
Typist or word processor
The title is accurate and the pay band matches
Turning recordings into written records
Transcriptionist
Screens for listening skill and terminology, not speed
Keying values from forms into a database or spreadsheet
Data entry clerk
Different skill set, different pay band, larger candidate pool
Typing plus phones, scheduling, filing, and ordering
Administrative assistant
A typist hired into a scattered role usually leaves quickly
Clinical dictation in a medical practice
Medical transcriptionist
Carries privacy obligations a general typist posting misses
Legal documents against filing deadlines
Legal typist or legal secretary
Court formatting and deadline pressure are the real requirements
For clinical dictation specifically, the medical transcriptionist templates carry the privacy language a general typist posting misses, including the business associate agreement question that arises the moment an outside vendor touches patient recordings.
One tactic recovers most of the search traffic anyway. Lead the job title with the function you need, then use the word typist inside the body of the posting where the responsibilities are described. The search still finds you and the title still reads accurately to a human.
What Belongs in the Posting
A typist job description has four jobs: set expectations about the actual material, filter candidates on speed and accuracy together, protect you on classification and confidentiality, and close the hire on pay and schedule. Most postings do only the fourth, badly. Here is the full inventory.
The parts that set expectations
What the source material actually is: audio, handwriting, redlines, scans
Daily volume in pages, records, or audio hours
Turnaround targets per document type
Which software and templates you use
The parts that filter applicants
Typing speed AND accuracy, stated as a pair
Whether the role is on site, hybrid, or remote
Schedule, including peak periods
Any industry terminology the work requires
The parts that protect you
Non-exempt hourly classification stated on the posting
Confidentiality obligation named before the interview
Essential functions written plainly
Equal opportunity and accommodation statement
The parts that win the hire
The hourly rate or a good-faith range
Whether overtime is available and expected
Who the typist reports to and hands work to
A named person and a real deadline to apply
The most common omission is volume. Candidates want to know whether this is eight pages a day or eighty, whether the audio is clean or terrible, and whether the queue empties by five or never. Vagueness there reads as an employer who has not measured the work, and experienced typists have been burned by that before. Our guide to writing a job description covers the general structure in more depth.
6 Typist Job Description Templates to Download
Download all six as one file or copy them individually. Each follows the same structure: company overview, position summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications, a classification and compliance note, an equal opportunity statement, and how to apply. The bracketed fields are the only parts you need to change.
Download All 6 Typist Job Description Templates
General office, audio transcription, copy typing, legal, remote, and part-time overflow. All in one download.
General Office Typist
Word processing and formatting
The standard on-site role: documents from mixed sources, house templates, proofreading, and version control, with the non-exempt classification stated.
Audio Transcription Typist
Recordings to transcripts
For recorded meetings, interviews, and dictation, with turnaround targets, an inaudible-marking rule, and the piece-rate pay warning included.
Copy Typist
Paper and scans to digital
For backlog conversion projects: throughput targets, second-pass checks, and the reminder that a short project is still an employee, not a contractor.
Legal Typist
Court formatting and deadlines
For firms: pleadings and discovery, jurisdiction formatting rules, exhibit assembly, and honest budgeting for deadline-week overtime.
Remote Typist
Scheduled, tracked, hourly
For work-from-home production, with eligible states, time tracking, file security rules, and the multi-state payroll warning spelled out.
Part-Time / Overflow Typist
Peak-season coverage
For seasonal spikes, with availability terms, daily overtime rules, sick leave accrual, and predictive scheduling flagged.
Template 1: General Office Typist (Word Processor)
The standard on-site role: documents from mixed sources, house templates, proofreading, version control, and the non-exempt classification stated on the posting rather than discovered later.
General Office Typist (Word Processor) Job Description
GENERAL OFFICE TYPIST / WORD PROCESSOR JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Office Manager / Operations Lead / Department Head]
[Company Name] is a [industry] business in [City, State] with [number] employees.
Our office produces a steady volume of [reports, proposals, contracts, meeting
minutes], and we are hiring a typist to take that production off the desks of
the people who write the source material.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Typist produces, formats, and proofreads business documents from written,
printed, dictated, and handwritten sources, maintains document naming and filing
standards, and returns finished work inside agreed turnaround times.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Type and format documents from [handwritten notes, dictation, printed copy,
scanned files] using [Word / Google Docs / your document system]
•Apply house templates and formatting standards to every document produced
•Proofread for spelling, grammar, numbers, and internal consistency
•Track document versions and keep the naming convention clean
•File finished work in [shared drive / document management system]
•Log incoming requests and confirm turnaround times with requesters
•Handle confidential material under our confidentiality policy
•Flag anything unreadable or ambiguous rather than guessing at it
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•High school diploma or equivalent
•Typing speed of [50 / 60 / 70] words per minute at [95%+] accuracy
•Working knowledge of [Word / Google Docs] including styles, tables, and
headers and footers
•Strong spelling, grammar, and proofreading skills in American English
•[Number] years in an office, clerical, or document production role preferred
•Ability to keep confidential information confidential
CLASSIFICATION NOTE (read before posting)
This is a non-exempt hourly position. Typing and document production is
production work, not the exercise of independent judgment on matters of
significance, so it does not meet the administrative exemption. Pay overtime
past 40 hours in a workweek and record all hours actually worked, including
time spent waiting for work at the employer's direction. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role, including for any
required skills assessment.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [benefits summary], [schedule]
To apply, email __ with your resume.
Template 2: Audio Transcription Typist
For recorded meetings, interviews, and dictation, with turnaround targets, a rule for marking inaudible sections instead of guessing, and the piece-rate pay warning built in.
Audio Transcription Typist Job Description
AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION TYPIST JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Office Manager / Practice Manager / Operations Lead]
For backlog conversion projects: throughput targets, second-pass accuracy checks, and the reminder that a fixed-length project is still an employee rather than a convenient contractor.
[Company Name] holds [number] boxes or files of [handwritten forms, legacy
paper records, scanned documents] that need to exist as clean, searchable
digital text. We are hiring a copy typist for [the duration of the project /
an ongoing backlog].
POSITION SUMMARY
The Copy Typist converts handwritten, printed, and scanned source material into
accurate digital documents, preserves the structure of the original, and flags
anything illegible rather than approximating it.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Type source material into [our template / the target system] exactly as
written, preserving structure and formatting
•Reproduce tables, forms, and numbered sections faithfully
•Flag illegible, damaged, or ambiguous entries for review instead of guessing
•Meet a daily throughput target of [pages / records] at [accuracy standard]
•Run a second-pass check on [percentage] of completed work
•Track progress against the batch log and report blockers
•Handle original documents carefully and return them to [storage] daily
•Follow confidentiality rules for [personnel, client, financial] records
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•High school diploma or equivalent
•Typing speed of [55 / 65] words per minute at [98%+] accuracy
•Ability to read varied handwriting and poor-quality scans
•Comfort with repetitive detail work and a daily throughput target
•Experience with [our system / Word / Excel] preferred
•Reliable attendance for a scheduled shift
CLASSIFICATION AND PROJECT NOTE
This is a non-exempt hourly role. Copy typing is production work and does not
meet any white collar exemption. If the work is a fixed-length project, you can
hire a temporary employee or work through a staffing agency, but do not
reclassify the same work as an independent contractor to shorten the paperwork:
when you set the schedule, the location, the method, and the throughput target,
you are directing an employee. Record all hours and pay overtime past 40 in a
workweek. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [project length], [schedule]
To apply, email __ with your resume.
Template 4: Legal Typist
For firms: pleadings and discovery, jurisdiction formatting rules, exhibit assembly, and honest budgeting for deadline-week overtime. If the role also runs the calendar and client contact, the legal secretary templates fit better.
Legal Typist Job Description
LEGAL TYPIST JOB DESCRIPTION
Firm: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Office Manager / Supervising Attorney / Paralegal]
[Firm Name] is a [practice area] firm in [City, State] with [number] attorneys.
Our document volume runs heavy in [pleadings, discovery responses, contracts,
correspondence, deposition summaries], and we are hiring a legal typist to keep
that production accurate and on schedule.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Legal Typist produces legal documents from attorney dictation, handwritten
drafts, and marked-up copy, applies court and firm formatting rules, and returns
finished work in time for filing and service deadlines.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Type and format [pleadings, motions, discovery, contracts, correspondence]
from dictation, handwritten drafts, and redlines
•Apply court formatting rules for [jurisdiction]: caption, line numbering,
margins, certificate of service, exhibit labeling
•Proofread citations, party names, dates, and figures against the source
•Prepare documents for [e-filing / service] and assemble exhibit sets
•Maintain document versions and the firm naming convention
•Track deadlines on the document calendar and escalate anything at risk
•Handle privileged and confidential material under firm policy
•Support [file organization, scanning, records requests] as needed
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•High school diploma or equivalent; [paralegal certificate preferred]
•Typing speed of [65 / 75] words per minute at [98%+] accuracy
•[Number] years typing legal documents, [practice area] preferred
•Working knowledge of [Word styles, document comparison, e-filing portal]
•Precise proofreading and comfort with dense formatting rules
•Ability to sign and follow a confidentiality agreement
CLASSIFICATION AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE
A legal typist is non-exempt: hourly and overtime-eligible past 40 hours in a
workweek. The job title does not decide this. A legal secretary or paralegal
performing substantive work may sit in a different analysis, but a typist whose
primary duty is producing documents from someone else's content is doing
production work, and production work is not exempt administrative work. Deadline
weeks generate real overtime in law firms, so budget for it rather than asking
staff to work off the clock, which is where wage claims start. Client material is
privileged: cover confidentiality in the offer letter and in onboarding. This is
general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Firm Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [benefits summary], [overtime expectations]
To apply, email __ with your resume.
Template 5: Remote / Work-From-Home Typist
For work-from-home production, with eligible states listed, time tracking required, file security rules stated, and the multi-state payroll consequences spelled out before you publish.
[Company Name] runs a steady queue of [transcription, document production,
formatting] work that does not require anyone to sit in our office. We are
hiring a remote typist to work that queue on a set schedule from [eligible
states].
POSITION SUMMARY
The Remote Typist produces and formats documents from assigned source material,
works a scheduled shift with tracked hours, meets published turnaround targets,
and follows our security rules for handling company and client information.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Work the assigned queue during scheduled hours of [times, time zone]
•Produce and format documents to our template and quality standard
•Record all working time in [time tracking system], including breaks per policy
•Meet turnaround targets of [hours] per [document type]
•Join a [daily / weekly] check-in and respond on [chat tool] during shift
•Store and transmit files only through approved company systems
•Keep the work area private when handling confidential material
•Report any device loss, breach, or suspected phishing immediately
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•High school diploma or equivalent
•Typing speed of [60 / 70] words per minute at [97%+] accuracy
•Reliable high-speed internet and a private, quiet work area
•Demonstrated success working independently against deadlines
•Residence in [list eligible states]
•Comfort with time tracking and remote communication tools
REMOTE CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
A remote typist is a non-exempt employee, not a contractor, when you set the
schedule, the method, the tools, and the throughput. Three things follow. First,
track every hour actually worked and pay overtime past 40 in a workweek; a
remote schedule does not turn hourly work into salaried work. Second, an employee
working from another state generally creates payroll tax registration, state
wage and hour, sick leave, and notice obligations in that state, so decide which
states you will hire in before you post. Third, several states require
reimbursement of necessary business expenses such as internet and equipment;
confirm the rule for the state the employee sits in and write your policy to
match. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [equipment provided], [expense policy]
To apply, email __ with your resume.
Template 6: Part-Time / Overflow Typist
For seasonal spikes, with availability terms, daily overtime rules, sick leave accrual, and predictive scheduling flagged. Broader office coverage sits in the clerical templates.
[Company Name] has a document load that spikes during [month-end, filing
season, board cycle, harvest, audit]. Rather than carrying a full-time typist
year round, we keep a small pool of part-time typists who can absorb the peak.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Part-Time Typist covers overflow document production during peak periods,
works agreed shifts, and produces accurate, correctly formatted work with minimal
supervision after an initial orientation.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Work [number] hours per week on [days], with additional hours during [peak
period]
•Produce and format documents from [assigned source material]
•Follow existing templates, naming conventions, and quality standards
•Confirm availability [weekly / monthly] with the office manager
•Escalate anything unclear rather than making assumptions
•Handle confidential material under company policy
•Complete assigned work before the end of the shift or hand it over cleanly
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•High school diploma or equivalent
•Typing speed of [50 / 60] words per minute at [95%+] accuracy
•Availability during [peak period] and reliability on short notice
•Working knowledge of [Word / Google Docs]
•Ability to pick up an existing standard quickly with limited hand-holding
CLASSIFICATION AND SCHEDULING NOTE
Part-time status changes nothing about classification: this is a non-exempt
hourly employee owed overtime past 40 hours in a workweek, and several states
require daily overtime past 8 hours regardless of weekly total. Check your state
rule before scheduling long peak-season days. Part-time employees may still be
covered by state paid sick leave laws, which often accrue from the first hour
worked with no minimum schedule. If your locality has predictive scheduling
rules, posting shifts late or changing them can carry a premium. Confirm all
three with your state labor agency. This is general information, not legal
advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [peak-season hours], [sick leave accrual]
To apply, email __ with your resume and availability.
Typing Tests and How to Screen Legally
Test on your own material, score accuracy before speed, and apply the same assessment to every candidate for the role. A words-per-minute figure on a resume is unverified, and a free online speed test measures typing clean sentences under ideal conditions, which is not the job.
A useful assessment takes ten minutes: a page of your real handwriting, five minutes of your actual audio, or a marked-up draft dropped into your real template. Score errors first. Speed is easy to improve and accuracy usually is not, and every error costs the time of someone paid more than the typist.
Work type
Reasonable speed target
Accuracy target
What the test should use
General office typing
50 to 60 wpm
95 percent
A real internal document in your template
Copy typing from handwriting or scans
55 to 65 wpm
98 percent
An actual page from the backlog
Audio transcription
65 to 75 wpm
98 percent
Five minutes of your genuine recordings
Legal document production
65 to 75 wpm
98 percent
A redlined draft with a court caption
Part-time overflow
50 to 60 wpm
95 percent
A short sample from the peak-season queue
Selection procedures that screen candidates are covered by federal employment discrimination law. The EEOC guidance on employment tests and selection procedures is the short version worth reading before you build one: a test must be job related and consistent with business necessity, applied consistently, and accompanied by reasonable accommodation for candidates with disabilities on request.
Say the Assessment Exists Before the Interview
Two mistakes cost small employers good candidates here. The first is springing a timed test on someone who came in expecting a conversation, which tests composure rather than skill. The second is skipping the accommodation offer, so a candidate who needs an adjusted setup or extra time either withdraws or underperforms for reasons unrelated to the job. State in the posting that a short skills assessment is part of the process, describe roughly what it involves, and invite accommodation requests in the same sentence.
Overtime, Piece Rates, and Classification
A typist is a non-exempt hourly employee in essentially every case. The federal regulations on white collar exemptions state that a job title alone never establishes exempt status, and typing is the cleanest illustration of the principle.
The administrative exemption described in the Department of Labor fact sheet on white collar exemptions requires a primary duty of office work directly related to management or general business operations that includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. Producing accurate documents from content someone else authored is production work, and production work is not exempt work under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
A typist is non-exempt, whatever the title says
The federal regulations open by stating that a job title alone never establishes exempt status, and typing is the clearest illustration of why. The administrative exemption requires a primary duty of office work directly related to management or general business operations that includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. Producing accurate documents from content someone else wrote is skilled production work, not judgment on matters of significance. That holds whether you call the role typist, word processor, document specialist, or keyboarding associate, and it holds whether you pay hourly or by the page. Treat the role as non-exempt: record every hour, pay overtime past forty in a workweek, and check whether your state adds a daily overtime rule on top. This is general information, not legal advice.
Piece rates and per-page pay still owe minimum wage
Transcription work is often quoted per audio minute or per page, and that is allowed, but it does not escape the wage floor. Every hour worked has to earn at least the applicable federal, state, or local minimum wage once the piece earnings are divided across actual hours, and overtime is calculated on the regular rate that the piece work produces rather than on the piece rate itself. The failure mode is predictable: a slow or difficult recording takes three hours to produce forty minutes of billable output, and the week quietly drops under the floor. Track hours even when you pay by output, run the division every pay period, and top up when it falls short. Unpaid setup, file downloading, and waiting time count as hours worked when you require them. This is general information, not legal advice.
Confidentiality is the real risk in this role
A typist sees everything: personnel files, medical notes, financial statements, client correspondence, board material, and drafts that were never meant to circulate. That exposure is larger than the exposure of most roles you pay twice as much. Handle it structurally rather than hopefully. Name the confidentiality obligation in the posting so candidates self-select, sign a confidentiality agreement at offer rather than in week three, restrict system access to the folders the work actually touches, and set a rule for local file storage and deletion. If the material includes protected health information and the typist works for an outside transcription vendor rather than for you, a business associate agreement is required before any file moves. Revoke access on the last day, not the following month. This is general information, not legal advice.
Remote typists create obligations in their state
This is one of the easiest roles to run remotely, which is exactly why it catches small employers out. An employee working from another state generally means registering for payroll tax there, following that state’s wage and hour rules including any daily overtime and meal break requirements, complying with its paid sick leave law, and issuing its required wage notices. Several states also require employers to reimburse necessary business expenses such as home internet and equipment used for work. Decide which states you are willing to hire in before you publish the posting, list them in the ad, and confirm the employee’s actual work location at hire and whenever it changes. Classifying a scheduled, supervised remote typist as an independent contractor to sidestep all of this is the mistake that generates back-pay claims. This is general information, not legal advice.
Record every hour and pay overtime past forty in a workweek, and check whether your state adds a daily rule past eight hours. If you are weighing a borderline role, our breakdown of exempt versus non-exempt classification works through the duties tests in order.
Background screening is worth considering where the material is sensitive, particularly for financial records, personnel files, or client correspondence. Our guide to running a background check covers the disclosure and consent steps that legally come before the check itself.
What to Pay a Typist
The national median for word processors and typists is $23.69 per hour, which sits above general office clerks and data entry keyers and slightly above secretaries and administrative assistants. The band is wide, so the specific version of the job you are hiring for matters more than the occupation average.
National Wage Ladder, Word Processors and Typists
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), word processors and typists earned a national median of $23.69 per hour, or $49,280 per year. The tenth percentile earned $17.70 per hour ($36,810 annually), the twenty-fifth $19.62, the seventy-fifth $27.73, and the ninetieth $31.32 per hour ($65,150 annually) (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS national estimates).
Occupation
National median hourly (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
Annual
Note for small employers
Word processors and typists
$23.69
$49,280
The literal typist classification
Data entry keyers
$19.88
$41,340
Keying into fields, not producing documents
Office clerks, general
$21.64
$45,010
Typing plus everything else in the office
Secretaries and administrative assistants
$22.86
$47,540
Broader ownership, similar hourly band
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants
$26.72
$55,570
Deadline pressure and formatting rules cost more
Medical transcriptionists
$19.43
$40,410
Clinical dictation carries privacy obligations
Court reporters and simultaneous captioners
$34.82
$72,420
Certified verbatim capture is a different profession
Three factors justify paying above the median: specialized terminology the candidate already knows, deadline exposure where a late document has consequences, and confidentiality risk from the material itself. Publish a good-faith range where pay transparency laws apply, and remember that a part-time schedule does not reduce the hourly rate the market expects.
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Three things go wrong predictably when a small office hires for this role: the title narrows the pool, the screening measures the wrong number, and the hourly part-time paperwork never gets standardized. Each has a fix that costs nothing.
You are posting a title that fewer people search for every year
The occupation is shrinking, and the label is shrinking faster than the work. Plenty of strong candidates who do exactly this job every day describe themselves as administrative assistants, document specialists, or transcriptionists, and they never search the word typist. Meanwhile the applicants who do search it skew toward people looking for the work-from-home typing offers that fill the results, which is a poor match for a scheduled office role. The fix costs nothing: lead the title with the function you actually need, put typist in the body of the posting so the search still finds you, and describe the source material in the first two lines so candidates can tell in ten seconds whether the job is theirs.
You screen on words per minute and get accuracy problems anyway
Speed without accuracy is worse than slow work, because every error has to be found by someone more expensive than the typist. A number on a resume is unverified and a free online speed test is trivially gamed. Test on your own material instead: a page of your real handwriting, five minutes of your actual audio, or a marked-up draft in your real template, scored for accuracy first and time second. Say in the posting that a short skills assessment is part of the process, apply it to every candidate for the role in the same way, and offer a reasonable accommodation for the assessment on request. Ten minutes of testing on real source material predicts the first month better than any interview question about attention to detail.
The role is hourly, part-time, and seasonal, so the paperwork never lands cleanly
Typing roles cluster at the messy end of employment: hourly, part-time, sometimes remote, often ramped up for a filing season and back down after. That means offer letters, confidentiality agreements, tax and eligibility forms, state notices, time tracking setup, system access, and policy acknowledgments, repeated every season for people who may only be with you for eleven weeks. FirstHR was built for that pattern. The onboarding wizard runs the same sequence every time, e-signature covers the offer letter and the confidentiality agreement, document management keeps signed forms against each employee profile, and training modules deliver the confidentiality and data handling orientation before the first document is opened. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR. Note that FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider.
Before the offer, the pipeline itself is usually a spreadsheet and an inbox, which is survivable at three candidates and unpleasant at thirty. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR. Until it lands, keep the pipeline deliberately small: one shared sheet holding candidate, assessment score, and next step, reviewed on a fixed day each week so nobody goes cold.
Once the offer is signed, the work shifts to a repeatable onboarding checklist: confidentiality agreement, system access limited to the folders the work touches, time tracking setup, template orientation, and a first-week accuracy review on real material rather than a test.
Key Takeaways
The word typist covers three different jobs (document production, transcription, and copy typing) plus one impostor (data entry), so name the source material in the first two lines of the posting.
Count the hours before choosing the title: if typing is under half the day, an administrative assistant posting will attract better candidates than a typist posting.
A typist is non-exempt in essentially every case, because a job title never establishes exempt status and producing documents from someone else’s content is production work, not judgment on matters of significance.
Piece rates per page or per audio minute are allowed, but every hour worked still has to clear minimum wage and overtime is calculated on the resulting regular rate.
The national median is $23.69 per hour or $49,280 per year (BLS OEWS, May 2025), with the tenth to ninetieth percentile band running $17.70 to $31.32 per hour.
Test on your own material, score accuracy before speed, announce the assessment in the posting, and offer a reasonable accommodation for it in the same sentence.
Hourly, part-time, and seasonal hires generate the same paperwork as full-time ones, every season. FirstHR runs the same onboarding sequence each time, with e-signature for the offer letter and confidentiality agreement, document storage against each employee profile, and training modules for confidentiality and data handling before the first document is opened. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a typist do?
A typist produces, formats, and proofreads documents from written, printed, dictated, or handwritten source material. In a modern small office that breaks into three recognizable jobs. Document production means turning drafts, redlines, and dictation into finished documents in your templates, which is what survives in law firms, clinics, and records-heavy offices. Transcription means turning recorded audio into accurate written records, where listening comprehension and terminology matter more than raw speed. Copy typing means converting handwriting, paper files, and scans into clean digital text, usually as a backlog project. What a typist is not is a data entry keyer: if the source is a form and the destination is a database field, that is a different role with a different pay band. Decide which of the three you actually need before writing the posting, because the qualifications diverge sharply.
What should a typist job description include?
Include seven things. First, what the source material actually is: audio, handwriting, redlines, or scans, because that single line filters more candidates than any qualification list. Second, the daily volume in pages, records, or audio hours. Third, turnaround targets per document type. Fourth, typing speed and accuracy stated as a pair, since speed alone is a meaningless number. Fifth, the software and templates you use. Sixth, the confidentiality obligation, named before the interview rather than sprung at offer. Seventh, the non-exempt hourly classification and the pay, with a good-faith range where pay transparency laws require one. Close with an equal opportunity and accommodation statement, a named person to apply to, and a real deadline. The six templates on this page already carry that structure.
How much does a typist make?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), word processors and typists earned a national median of $23.69 per hour, or $49,280 per year. The spread is wide for a clerical occupation: the tenth percentile earned $17.70 per hour and the ninetieth earned $31.32 per hour. Adjacent classifications set the context. Data entry keyers had a median of $19.88 per hour, general office clerks $21.64, secretaries and administrative assistants $22.86, and legal secretaries and administrative assistants $26.72. Medical transcriptionists sat at $19.43 per hour. Pay toward the top of the band when the work carries deadline pressure, specialized terminology, or heavy confidentiality exposure, and publish a good-faith range where your state or city requires it.
Is a typist exempt or non-exempt under the FLSA?
Non-exempt, in essentially every case. The federal regulations state plainly that a job title alone never establishes exempt status. The administrative exemption requires a primary duty of office work directly related to management or general business operations that includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. Producing accurate documents from content that someone else authored is skilled production work, not judgment on matters of significance, so it does not qualify. That conclusion holds whether you call the role typist, word processor, or document specialist, and whether you pay hourly or by the page. Record all hours actually worked, pay overtime past forty hours in a workweek, and check whether your state adds a daily overtime rule past eight hours. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can I pay a transcription typist per audio minute or per page?
Yes, piece rates are allowed, but they do not escape the wage floor or overtime. Every hour worked must earn at least the applicable federal, state, or local minimum wage once piece earnings are divided across the actual hours worked, and overtime is calculated on the regular rate that the piece work produces, not on the piece rate itself. The predictable failure is a difficult recording that takes three hours to produce forty minutes of billable output, quietly dropping that week below the floor. Track hours even when you pay by output, run the division every pay period, and top up any shortfall. Required setup, file downloading, and waiting time at your direction count as hours worked. This is general information, not legal advice.
What typing speed should I require for a typist?
Set speed and accuracy together, and calibrate to the work rather than to a number you saw somewhere. A reasonable starting point is 50 to 60 words per minute at 95 percent accuracy for general office typing, 55 to 65 at 98 percent for copy typing from handwriting or scans, and 65 to 75 at 98 percent for transcription and legal document production where errors are expensive. Accuracy is the number that matters, because every error has to be caught by someone paid more than the typist. Do not trust the figure on a resume or a free online speed test. Test on your own material: a page of your real handwriting, five minutes of your actual audio, or a marked-up draft in your real template. Apply the same assessment to every candidate for the role and offer a reasonable accommodation on request.
Should I hire a typist or an administrative assistant?
Count the hours honestly. If document production is genuinely most of the day, hire a typist and write the posting around source material, volume, and turnaround. If typing is under half the day and the rest is phones, scheduling, filing, ordering, and vendor follow-up, hire an administrative assistant, because a typist hired into a scattered role tends to leave within a few months and a good assistant will not apply to a posting titled typist at all. Pay reflects the difference: administrative assistants had a national median of $22.86 per hour against $23.69 for word processors and typists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey (May 2025), but assistants carry far broader ownership of the office. The volume of typing, not the tidiness of the title, decides this.
Can a typist work remotely as an independent contractor?
Remotely, usually yes. As an independent contractor, usually no. When you set the schedule, the templates, the tools, the throughput targets, and the review process, you are directing an employee regardless of what the agreement is called, and misclassification generates back pay, overtime, and tax exposure. Hire the remote typist as a non-exempt hourly employee with tracked hours instead. Then handle the state consequences up front: an employee working from another state generally means payroll tax registration there, that state’s wage and hour rules including any daily overtime, its paid sick leave law, and its required wage notices. Several states also require reimbursement of necessary business expenses such as home internet. Decide which states you will hire in before you post, and list them in the ad. This is general information, not legal advice.
