How Do I Become a Document Indexer?

Document indexers are professionals who look over documents and create indexes that allow people to research information more easily. If you would like to become a document indexer, you can pursue two years of college training during which you will master your language skills. In addition, gaining internship experience will make you more competitive in the job market. You also need to consider completing an additional two years of college to earn a four-year degree, which makes you further stand out among other job applicants in this industry.

A person who aims to become a document indexer should complete a two-year associate degree program in an area such as language arts or library science. Your chosen training institution will want to see your high school transcript and your high school diploma, or the equivalent certification. The school also should ask you for your standardized exam results and a completed enrollment application.

Language and library courses teach you the skills that you need to succeed in this field. An aspiring industry professional has to learn how to review documents and determine what type of indexing system will work best to help people to locate information in electronic or paper records. For this reason, strong reading, analysis, and writing skills are critical if you desire to become a document indexer. You also need to sharpen your research skills because you have to determine what content is present in documents and then extract this information so that it is available in an easy-to-scan database for customers.

Completing an internship is important for you to be able to gain skills specific to this career area, and libraries and publishing companies offer this type of training opportunity. During your work as an intern, you should prove to supervisors that you can read through documents quickly and pay strong attention to detail. The company at which you intern could be willing to hire you full-time or even might be willing to pay for your services if you choose to become a document indexer who works on a freelance basis, which is common in this field.

Although some employers only require job applicants to have earned two-year degrees, other companies prefer people who have received four-year degrees. Your associate degree course credits might transfer to a four-year bachelor’s degree program institution as you seek to expand your training to become a document indexer. Filling out an enrollment application and submitting your associate degree program transcript is a necessary part of the college admission process.