How to transcribe an interview

August 27, 2026 · Updated September 7, 2026

Transcribing an interview is a higher-stakes version of transcribing anything else. You're not just trying to remember what was said — you're probably going to quote it directly, which means the bar for accuracy on names and specific phrasing is a lot higher than for a transcript you'll only skim.

The single biggest thing that wrecks accuracy

It's not background noise. It's overlapping speech — the interviewer jumping in with a follow-up before the interviewee finishes a sentence. A transcription model has to guess which voice to follow during an overlap, and it often guesses wrong for the rest of that sentence, not just the overlapping words. If you're the one conducting the interview, the highest-leverage habit is letting people finish before you respond — it costs nothing in the moment and meaningfully improves the transcript later.

Names and jargon are the other predictable failure point, and no amount of audio quality fixes that — the model is guessing at a word it's never encountered, the same way a person would mishear an unfamiliar name over the phone. Budget a proofreading pass specifically for proper nouns before you quote anything.

Interview Transcription accepts the recording as audio or video directly — a phone recording, a Zoom call export, or a dedicated voice recorder file all work without conversion first.

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Frequently asked questions

What hurts interview transcript accuracy the most?

Overlapping speech, not background noise. When an interviewer talks over the answer, the model has to guess which voice to follow, and it often stays wrong for the rest of the sentence rather than just the overlapping words.

Will the transcript label who said what?

No. You get one continuous block of text. For an interview that matters more than usual, since attributing a quote to the wrong person is a worse error than a misspelled word.

Is an automatic transcript accurate enough to quote from?

Not without checking. Budget a proofreading pass specifically for proper nouns before quoting anything — names and specialist terms are where the errors cluster, and they are exactly the words a quote depends on.

What can I do while recording to get a better transcript?

Let people finish before responding. It costs nothing during the interview and removes the single biggest source of transcription error afterwards.

Can I transcribe a phone or video-call interview?

Yes. A phone recording, a call export, or a dedicated recorder file all work without conversion. Expect slightly lower accuracy from phone audio, which is compressed harder than an in-person recording.