An Inventory control specialist is someone who is responsible for controlling, managing and monitoring inventory in a company. Few Important tasks include checking the Inventory storage, inflow & outflow of the goods and shortage or excess of inventory.
Carrying out maintenance and ensuring the smooth workflow in the warehouse is also included in the job description of inventory control specialist.
Want to know more in detail?
If Yes, continue reading this post till the end. In this article, you will know what does inventory control specialist do in the company, what are the required skills, what are the future options and what is the salary.
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Inventory Control Specialist Job Description:
As I said earlier, the main task of inventory control specialist is to manage the inventory/products/goods and all the other resources of the company.
He/she needs to actively check and control the inflow and outflow of the inventory. He/she also needs to make sure that products/resources are neither less nor they are more than required.
His/her task also includes to keep data on every item and order those which are required. In some organizations, professionals can directly connect to sellers and order the required products or resources. Whereas in other organizations,  they have to pass the information upwards by raising a ticket or sending a formal email and then wait for the response.
Other duties include making reports such as quantity reports, defective inventory reports and product consumption reports (few companies need this).
Professionals in this field must have knowledge of using computers as they need to maintain various data and store it safely. They also need to edit, update and print the information and send it to a higher authority when needed.
Inventory control specialists also need to participate in company meetings as well as in hiring process. They are also responsible for giving training and encouraging the new staff.
If you are in the HR Department and are looking for job description example, here is one sample job posting.
Job Post Template:
[alert-note]
Inventory Control Specialist
[Company Description Here under 50 words. This section is to attract more applications from the candidates. You can write about company’s revenue, etc.]
Principal Accountabilities / Responsibilities:
- Receives and verifies incoming items assuring items received are accurate.
- Conduct count and condition of incoming items.
- Compare received items to purchase orders and packing lists.
- Inputs required data into ERP inventory system including transfers and deletions.
- Maintains labeling system on each stock item.
- Assist in stocking received material.
- Assist with Cycle Count inventory processes to ensure the accuracy of inventory.
- Take physical inventory of all parts and materials on a regular periodic basis.
- Restores and reconcile balance with material control.
- [Also, Include any special requirement if any.]
Minimum Qualifications:
- Experience in MS Office Applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint).
- Security Clearance may be required.
- Excellent attendance record with ability to work flexible hours and able to meet overtime requirements.
- Receiving/stockroom/warehouse operations is a plus.
- Requires a High School Diploma or GED, College degree preferred.
- Must be able to work independently with a minimum of supervision.
- Able to lift 50 pounds.
- [Include any other requirement if any.]
[Few Additional Points here explaining perks and benefits of working in your organization. You can also mention the documents you require before and after the job interview.]
[/alert-note]
Note: This is just an example template. You must make necessary and required changes before publishing the job post using this template.
If you are in this field, from this job post example you can easily identify what are your roles and responsibilities.
You can also get a hint of what skills you must have and what skills HR’s and companies are looking in the candidate’s resume/cv.
Let me again briefly explain you the roles and responsibilities. Including the one which is left and not covered in the template. This will give you a much better idea.
Roles and Responsibilities of Inventory Control Specialist:
- Planning and developing procedures to maintain the inventory levels in stock.
- Verifying incoming items assuring items received are accurate.
- Must add the data into the files/system [mostly ERP system]. Also, update, delete and modify the data when required.
- Identify and make a separate data of common and uncommon inventory items.
- Identify ways to discard, dispose or sell products which are not used from longer time (obsolete items).
- Should be working smoothly with other teams such as sales team, purchasing department and shipping team.
- Maintaining the labeling system on each inventory and ensuring it is accurate.
- Performing regular audits of the entire inventory.
- Participate in company meetings.
- Participate in Hiring and firing process.
- Provide necessary training to junior and new staff.
- Ensuring the staff is working as per the rules and encourage them.
- Training them in cycle counting and inventory control.
- Filing claims for defective inventory and teaching the same process to the junior staff.
- Learning new technologies and teaching the same to junior staff.
- Finding flaws in the current process and create a new strategy to solve the issues.
Required Skills and Knowledge for Inventory Control Specialist:
- Candidate must have previous Logistics experience.
- Should be able to lead the team and must have all the leadership qualities such as working as a team with the junior staff, teaching and training them, encourage them to work towards company’s target.
- Candidate must be Detail oriented and must work with minimal errors in data.
- Must have basic computer knowledge and should be able to work on and learn new software.
- Candidate must be a future thinker and multi-tasker.
- Should be able to work effectively under pressure
- Must have the ability to handle complex situations
- Should good communication skills (written and verbal).
Educational Requirements:
As such, there is no specific educational requirements for inventory control specialists, but employers select resumes holding a degree in logistics or business operations.
Luckily, I was able to talk with one HR manager and she informed me that they do not look much on the educational background if the candidate is well experienced. For this role, you will only get CV of the professionals with minimum 3 or more years of experience. She also informed that she observed many HR’s prefer to select candidates with an associate’s degree in business management and equal to or more than 2 years of experience same field.
These are few more skills for Inventory control specialists. Having these skills can greatly help them in improving their career.
- Quality Assurance
- MRP [Materials Requirement Planning]
- Quality Control
- Shipping
- Inventory Management
- Cycle count
- Microsoft office
Okay. So, now you know about the required skills, roles and responsibilities.
Let me tell you about the salary and future options. [This is interesting!]
Inventory Control Specialist Salary Information:
Basic salary of an inventory control specialist is around $12-17 per hour. When I was checking recent jobs posted by few companies on various job boards, I noticed that $15 was common in many job postings.
So, you can assume that $15 is an average per hour salary for professionals in this field.
Professionals with good experience and those who showed good results in their past work might get higher pay.
Moreover, if you are good at many skills such as being excellent with computers and calculations, then it can result in higher pay as well.
Entry level Inventory control specialist can earn around $25,000 – $30,000. As you get the experience of around 5 years you can get around $35,000. And with over 10 years of experience, you can easily demand more than or around $45,000 to $50,000.
Companies like Amazon, Apple, Walmart, etc. gives great salary to their employees in this field. So, target these companies and you will get great salary as well as you can get many other benefits of being their employee. (Bonus $$$)
In the United States, Seattle and Minneapolis are the two main cities where you can find high-paying inventory control specialist jobs.
Check Recent Job openings for Inventory control specialist in Seattle here, and if you want to check for Minneapolis, click here.
According to few public sources, professionals working in this field are highly satisfied with their roles and responsibilities.
Men are dominating this field, but there are more than 40% of women and around 60% of men with this job.
Mostly, companies provide all the health benefits such as medical benefits (~75% companies), dental benefits (~67% companies) and vision-related health benefits (~62% companies).
Let’s talk about future growth and opportunities…
Future options for Inventory Control Specialist:
When surveying few of the actively working as well as those who were working in this field, I found that majority of the professional were not showing interest in getting promoted to higher level.
They are satisfied with their work role and salary. They were also able to make a schedule which gives them almost perfect work-life balance. [Sounds Interesting!]
Still, many successful Inventory Control Specialist are willing to grow and make better career ahead in this field have various options ahead of them.
But with greater position, comes greater responsibilities.
If you work hard and show some impressive results, you can get promoted to:
- Senior Specialist (Inventory).
- Inventory Manager.
- Inventory Control Manager.
- Inventory Control Supervisor.
- Buyer and then to Senior Buyer.
If you perform well on these positions, then there are high chances that you can get promoted to higher positions such as Purchase manager, Operations manager or Warehouse Manager.
Inventory Control specialist can even get promoted to the position of Materials Manager. Getting materials manager position is really good in terms of salary. If you are a hard working professional, you can easily get around $70,000. With good work performance, you can get the position of materials manager.
The people I surveyed didn’t know this? Come on its $70,000!
So, now you know there is a good future in this field. But make sure you work hard and follow the rules. Gain some good experience as well as get some extra knowledge. Aim to get good results which you can show to the senior members of the company.
Aim for bigger companies. Try to get into them and if succeeded, you can get good money in your account.
Additional Information:
- There are more than 14,000 jobs are available in the USA for Inventory Control Specialist.
- Among these 14,000+ jobs, around 2,700+ jobs were posted within last 10 days. [From the date of writing this post]
- You can check the latest jobs for inventory control specialist by clicking here.
- Around 32,000 inventory control specialist profiles are available on LinkedIn. [On the date of writing this post]
- So, join LinkedIn and connect with these professionals.
- Making some good connections can also help you in getting a good paying job.
- There are few groups and active communities online. Be a part of those forums and groups. You might find some good opportunity from there as well.
Hope you got the information you were seeking for.
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Cheers!
