Essential Warehouse Worker Duties and Responsibilities

Brandi Glass
5 min read
Men Working in a Warehouse

Working in a warehouse requires an extensive range of duties and skills, from inventory control to safely driving a forklift. Knowing which of these many warehouse worker duties and responsibilities to include on your resume can be challenging.

Picking the right warehouse worker duties will help ensure that your resume stands out. Fortunately, you don’t have to rely on guesswork. There are several simple guidelines that will help you decide which duties, responsibilities and skill sets to include on your resume.

Keep reading to discover these guidelines, along with the best way to present your warehouse worker duties on your resume.

Warehouse Worker Duties vs Skills: A Key Difference

Warehouse worker duties are the tasks you were responsible for doing in your past and current warehouse operative roles. These are normally listed under the job title and company name in the employment history section of your resume.

Your skills, meanwhile, are the traits and abilities you use to fulfill your warehouse worker duties. You can include them under your employment history section. However, you'll also want to include the most important skills in a dedicated skills section at the top of your resume.

Let's look at some examples:

Example Warehouse Worker Duties:

Warehouse Operative, ABC Warehouse, June 2022—present

  • Receiving new stock deliveries and conducting inventory
  • Reporting inventory issues to management

Example Warehouse Worker Skills:

Key Skills:

  • Attention to detail leading to a 9% reduction in inventory loss
  • Training: trained team members on new software for inventory control

Which Warehouse Worker Duties and Skills Should You Include on Your Resume?

Use this checklist to help you decide whether to include warehouse worker duties and skills on your resume.

Include warehouse worker duties and skills if any of the following apply:

  • They’re included in the job listing
  • They’re relevant to the role you’re applying for
  • They demonstrate impressive achievements

Don’t include warehouse worker duties and skills if all the following apply:

  • They’re not mentioned in the job listing
  • You have more relevant duties and skills for the role you’re applying for
  • They weren’t a major part of your responsibilities in previous roles

How to Include Warehouse Worker Duties and Responsibilities on your Resume

You should include previous warehouse worker duties and responsibilities underneath the relevant role in the employment history section of your resume. Use a bullet-point list, and start each bullet point with a strong verb. You don't need to use full sentences.

If the duty or responsibility was mentioned in the job posting, you should choose the exact same phrasing on your resume. This will help ensure your resume isn't filtered out by an applicant tracking system, i.e. software designed to discard any applications that don't have the required skills and experiences. More and more employers are choosing to use applicant tracking systems, especially bigger companies such as warehouse owners, courier services and large retail corporations.

Where possible, you should add impressive data or achievements for the most important duties and responsibilities. For example, you could mention that the workplace accident rate fell by 17% after you began training staff on health and safety requirements. Alternatively, you could state that you exceeded your productivity targets six months in a row.

Although it's good to include achievements, you also want to keep your job descriptions concise. Here's what you could do that:

Warehouse Operative, ABC Warehouse, June 2022—present

  • Exceeded productivity targets by up to 12% six months in a row
  • Trained staff on health and safety leading to 17% reduction in on-site accidents

15 Warehouse Worker Duties to Include on your Resume

While your duties will vary depending on your exact role, these are some of the common warehouse worker duties you could choose to include:

  1. Loading and unloading orders
  2. Inspecting inventory
  3. Conducting inventory
  4. Reporting issues with deliveries
  5. Preparing orders
  6. Packing stock
  7. Preparing pallets
  8. Using a forklift
  9. Using proprietary software to monitor stock
  10. Ensuring safe storage of temperature-sensitive stock
  11. Cleaning the warehouse
  12. Following health and safety guidelines
  13. Training new staff members
  14. Ensuring your team meets productivity targets
  15. Using proprietary software to monitor and update stock levels

How to Include Warehouse Worker Skills on Your Resume

You can include warehouse worker skills in both the employment history and key skills sections of your resume.

Add the most important skills to your dedicated skills section. You should include four to eight skills here. Ideally, you’ll be able to provide brief evidence in the form of achievements, training and past responsibilities. For example, you could write:

  • First aid training (2023)
  • Leadership skills; managed a team of 33 workshop operatives

Relevant but less impressive skills can go in the employment history section. You can also repeat the most important skills here if you want to elaborate on them.

Just like when you include your warehouse worker duties and responsibilities, it's important to stay concise. The more white space you have on your resume, the easier it will be for hiring managers to skim read it and find the most impressive details.

You should also make sure to match your phrasing with the job listing, if relevant. This will help you ensure your resume doesn’t get filtered out by applicant tracking software, and instead, makes it through to a recruiter’s inbox.

15 Warehouse Worker Skills to Include on Your Resume

  1. Excellent organization
  2. Attention to detail
  3. Reporting skills
  4. Time management
  5. Coordination
  6. Teamwork
  7. Leadership skills
  8. Training skills
  9. Communication skills
  10. Equipment maintenance
  11. Tech-savviness
  12. Packing skills
  13. Strong work ethic
  14. Knowledge of health and safety guidelines
  15. First aid

Highlight Your Warehouse Worker Experience on your Resume

Your resume should underscore your warehouse worker skills and experiences so that you can catch a hiring manager's eye and be invited to interview. But they’re not the only things you need to include on your resume. You also need to write a compelling professional summary and education section, among other important resume sections.

And, you have to decide the ideal structure for your resume: chronological, skills-based or hybrid. Don't forget that your resume also needs to be machine-readable, professionally laid out and customized to the role and company in question.

There's a lot to consider when drafting your resume, but getting it right pays off. A well-written resume will help you achieve more job offers and potentially a higher starting salary.

Our warehouse worker resume templates will help you quickly write a professional resume. They’re easy to customize, and our resume builder will talk you through selecting the ideal structure and phrasing based on your professional experience and background.

With our tools, you can craft an excellent warehouse worker resume in 10 minutes. Build your resume now and begin applying for new roles.