Shipping and Receiving Associate Job Description

A Shipping and Receiving Associate owns the dock doors: the point where freight enters a building and the point where it leaves. The federal occupational code for the job is Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, and the title covers the person who checks a trailer against its paperwork, keys the receipt into the system, and builds the outbound loads that go back out the same doors. The work happens in warehouses, distribution centers, factories, retail back rooms and hospital supply departments.

The receiving side

A shift on receiving starts with the appointment board. A driver backs in, the associate breaks the seal, and the count begins. Every pallet or carton gets compared with the bill of lading, the advance ship notice and the purchase order. Short counts, overages, crushed corners, wet cartons and wrong SKUs get written on the delivery receipt before the driver signs out, because a clean signature tells the carrier the load arrived in good order. Photos of damage go into the claim file. Once the freight is accepted, the associate scans each license plate number or barcode into the warehouse management system (WMS), prints putaway labels, and stages the goods for the stock team or moves them to location on a pallet jack or forklift.

The shipping side

Outbound runs in reverse. The associate pulls the day's orders, confirms that what was picked matches the pick ticket, and packs or palletizes to the carrier's rules: stretch wrap, corner boards, pallet height and weight, freight class. Parcel goes out through the carrier's shipping software. Less-than-truckload (LTL) and full-truckload freight needs a bill of lading, a pickup booked with the carrier, and a load plan so the trailer is balanced and the first stop sits nearest the door. Clerks in this job also compute freight costs, prepare invoices, and write inventory reports.

The records

The paperwork is the product. Receiving logs, overage, shortage and damage (OS&D) reports, proof-of-delivery copies, cycle counts and return authorizations all pass through this desk. When a supplier bills for more cartons than the dock counted, the receiving record settles the argument. When a customer says an order never arrived, the signed bill of lading does.

The tools

Clerks scan barcodes with handheld devices or read RFID tags, and at some sites sensors and tags log when and where a pallet moves, so reports stay current without a manual count. Beyond the scanner, the associate works in the WMS or the receiving module of an ERP, in carrier portals, and in spreadsheets for anything the system cannot track. On the floor the kit is a pallet jack, a hand truck, a tape gun, a scale and, at many sites, a forklift or a stand-up reach truck.

The desk is often an office inside the warehouse or plant, with time on the floor to check freight or clear a jam on the conveyor. Some associates work nights, weekends or holidays.

Education

The usual starting credential is a high school diploma or GED. A college degree is not part of the typical path, though a certificate or associate degree in supply chain or logistics helps later when an associate goes after an inventory control, purchasing or supervisor job. Basic math matters from day one: checking unit counts against case packs, weighing pallets, and working out freight charges.

Training on the job

Most of the learning happens at the dock. A new associate usually starts by counting stock and labeling inventory, then takes over receipts, then learns outbound documentation and carrier booking. For most material recording clerks, that training lasts up to 1 month. Safety training runs alongside it, and many of those rules are standardized through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Forklift authorization

Forklift sign-off does not come from a card bought online. Under OSHA's powered industrial truck standard, the employer must ensure each operator is competent, as shown by completing training and an evaluation. That training combines formal instruction, hands-on practice and an evaluation of the operator's performance in the workplace, and the employer certifies each operator who has been trained and evaluated. The employer must also evaluate each operator's performance at least once every three years. The standard lets an employer skip repeat training on topics an operator already learned, provided the operator is evaluated and found competent, so prior experience can shorten the process at a new job.

Credentials worth pursuing

• Certified Logistics Associate (CLA), awarded by the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC): an entry-level logistics credential.
• Certified Logistics Technician (CLT), also from MSSC: the technician-level credential that builds on the CLA.
• OSHA 10-Hour General Industry card, issued through the OSHA Outreach Training Program: a 10-hour introductory safety course for general industry workplaces.

Technical skills

• Receiving and shipping transactions in a WMS or ERP module, with accurate location and lot entry
• RF scanner use, license plate numbering, and label printing
• Parcel shipping software from the major carriers, plus LTL carrier booking portals
• Reading a bill of lading, a packing list and an advance ship notice, and spotting where they disagree
• Excel for discrepancy logs and cycle count reconciliation

Traits that show up in good receivers

Attention to detail is the core skill: a mislabeled pallet or a skipped carton count turns into a variance someone has to chase later. Communication matters just as much, since the associate talks to drivers, suppliers, buyers and the floor team, often in the same hour. Comfort with physical work matters too. The job involves lifting, bending and time on concrete floors, and proper lifting technique helps reduce the risk of injury. Reliability on early starts and late trailers is what gets an associate trusted with the keys to the dock.

The honest headline is that this occupation is shrinking. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks to fall from 827,700 jobs in 2025 to 765,000 in 2035, a decline of 8 percent, or 62,800 positions. The average projected growth rate for all occupations over the same decade is 3 percent.

Why the count is falling

BLS ties the decline directly to technology. In its Occupational Outlook Handbook, the agency says companies are expanding their use of automated storage and retrieval tools, and that technologies including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and collaborative robots will reduce demand for various material recording clerks. The logic is simple: when sensors log every pallet movement, fewer people are needed to count and key in the same freight by hand.

BLS links the spread of these tools to online retail: as e-commerce continues to grow, companies are adding them to meet rising demand for products and for faster delivery.

Why there are still openings

A shrinking occupation is not a closed one. Across the broader group BLS calls material recording clerks, which includes shipping and receiving clerks along with production planners and weighers, the agency projects about 98,600 openings a year on average over the decade. All of them come from replacing workers who move into other occupations or leave the labor force. Replacement hiring keeps the door open even as the total number of seats contracts.

Where the work is

Manufacturing is the largest employer of material recording clerks, at 28 percent of jobs, followed by transportation and warehousing, retail trade and wholesale trade. Industry changes the paycheck. BLS reports a May 2025 median of $47,990 for material recording clerks in transportation and warehousing, against $39,290 in retail trade and $39,000 in temporary help services.

How to stay on the right side of automation

The work those technologies target is counting and keying: tags and sensors that record a pallet's movement so nobody has to count it by hand. The rest of the job is judgment. Someone has to decide whether a crushed pallet gets refused, match a supplier's paperwork to what actually showed up, sort out a mis-shipped order with a customer service team, and train the next hire. Fluency in the WMS, the claims process and carrier problems is also the skill set behind lead and supervisor jobs on the dock. And someone has to understand the scanning, RFID and robotic equipment well enough to recover when it fails, which is a job in itself.

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am applying for the Shipping and Receiving Associate opening at Ridgeline Supply. For the past two years I have worked the inbound dock at a regional building products distributor, and before that I spent a year picking and loading orders for the same company. I know what a good receiving record looks like, and I know what it costs when one is missing.

On receiving, I check every trailer against the bill of lading and the purchase order before the driver pulls out. If a count is short or a pallet is damaged, I write it on the delivery receipt, take photos, and open the claim that afternoon. Last spring I caught a supplier that had been shorting one carton per pallet on a recurring order. The buyer used my receiving logs to get the credit and change the case pack spec, and my supervisor now sends new hires to shadow me for their first week.

I am certified on our sit-down forklift and stand-up reach truck, and I work in our WMS every day for receipts, putaway and cycle counts. I am comfortable with parcel shipping software and have booked LTL pickups when our outbound clerk was out, including building the bill of lading and checking freight class.

What draws me to Ridgeline is the outbound volume. My current building is mostly inbound, and I want to own both sides of the dock: scheduling carriers, building loads, and making sure the paperwork on the way out is as clean as the paperwork on the way in. I am also interested in learning the RFID portal system your job posting mentioned.

I am available for any shift, including weekends, and can start with two weeks' notice. Thank you for considering my application.

Sincerely, Marcus Delgado