Top 12 Freight Coordinator Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the fast-paced world of logistics and transportation, a sharp, memorable resume can swing doors open for aspiring freight coordinators. Showcasing the right skills signals you can wrangle complex freight operations, keep costs lean, and deliver without drama. That’s what hiring managers look for—evidence of control in a chaotic landscape.
Freight Coordinator Skills
- Logistics Management
- SAP
- Inventory Control
- Negotiation
- Customer Service
- Oracle SCM
- Freight Optimization
- Compliance Knowledge
- Microsoft Excel
- Time Management
- Problem-Solving
- TMS (Transportation Management System)
1. Logistics Management
Logistics Management is the planning, execution, and control of how goods and information move from origin to destination. For a Freight Coordinator, that means synchronizing carriers, schedules, and handoffs so freight arrives where it should, when it should, at a cost that makes sense.
Why It's Important
It keeps shipments flowing, trims waste, protects margins, and meets customer commitments with fewer delays. Smooth logistics, fewer headaches.
How to Improve Logistics Management Skills
Leveling up hinges on a few high-impact moves:
Optimize Routing: Use advanced routing tools to cut miles and fuel. Plan around windows, constraints, and reality on the ground.
Adopt Technology: Implement a robust TMS for visibility, rating, tendering, tracking, and settlement. One source of truth beats scattered spreadsheets.
Enhance Communication: Create real-time channels with carriers, warehouses, and customers. Quick coordination reduces dwell and surprises.
Focus on Compliance: Standardize documents and checks. Keep current with regulatory updates so shipments don’t stall at borders or scales.
Analyze and Improve: Review KPIs—on-time performance, cost per mile, claims, detention. Close gaps, repeat what works, retire what doesn’t.
Dial these in, and your network runs tighter, faster, cleaner.
How to Display Logistics Management Skills on Your Resume
2. SAP
SAP is an ERP backbone that unifies operations. For Freight Coordinators, it powers shipment planning, inventory synchronization, order flow, and charge capture—connecting logistics with finance and procurement without the data whiplash.
Why It's Important
It makes movement traceable, data consistent, and costs visible. Better signals in, better decisions out.
How to Improve SAP Skills
Make SAP work harder for freight:
Use SAP Transportation Management (TM): Plan, tender, track, and settle with stronger control over capacity and cost.
Streamline with SAP Fiori apps: Simplify common workflows and approvals so teams move faster.
Add real-time device data: Tap SAP’s IoT capabilities on SAP Business Technology Platform for live temperature, location, and status signals.
Lean on SAP Analytics Cloud: Monitor freight KPIs and drill into spend, transit time, and carrier performance.
Automate routine work: Use SAP Build Process Automation to cut manual data entry and reconcile documents automatically.
Integrate with partners: Set up APIs or EDI flows for carriers and 3PLs to sync status and invoices without rekeying.
Keep learning: Use structured training and internal playbooks; stay current on releases and features you can actually use.
Clarity grows. Errors shrink. Throughput rises.
How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume
3. Inventory Control
Inventory control keeps the right stock in the right place at the right time—no bloated shelves, no empty bins. For Freight Coordinators, it means shipments match availability and demand without costly scrambles.
Why It's Important
It aligns transport with reality in the warehouse. Less carrying cost, fewer expedites, happier customers.
How to Improve Inventory Control Skills
Push accuracy and visibility:
Adopt an integrated inventory system: Sync with WMS, TMS, and ERP so orders, picks, and shipments match.
Use barcode or RFID: Speed counts and reduce errors during receiving, picking, and staging.
Audit regularly: Cycle count and reconcile variances quickly to keep records clean.
Collaborate with suppliers: Share forecasts, confirm lead times, and tighten ASN quality to avoid surprises.
Set smart safety stock: Base buffers on variability and service targets, not guesswork.
Pursue continuous improvement: Apply lean methods to simplify flows and remove points of failure.
Train the team: Standard work, clear ownership, and rapid issue escalation prevent drift.
Visibility reduces firefighting; precision saves money.
How to Display Inventory Control Skills on Your Resume
4. Negotiation
Negotiation is the art of hammering out rates, terms, and service levels with carriers, vendors, and customers—without eroding relationships or service.
Why It's Important
It cuts spend, protects capacity in tight markets, and locks in predictability. Lower costs, fewer surprises.
How to Improve Negotiation Skills
Sharpen your edge:
Know your numbers: Current lane rates, accessorial trends, service history. Data anchors confidence.
Define your BATNA: Have credible alternatives before you sit down. Leverage without bluffing.
Build rapport: Long-term partnerships beat one-shot bargains. Trust earns flexibility when you need it.
Listen actively: Uncover constraints and trade-offs. Solve the real problem, not the loudest one.
Prepare relentlessly: Map your must-haves, nice-to-haves, and walk-away points. Script key questions.
Communicate crisply: Be clear, firm, and fair. Document agreements immediately.
Debrief: After each negotiation, capture lessons. Adjust your playbook.
Process plus poise wins deals you can live with.
How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume
5. Customer Service
Customer service for a Freight Coordinator means proactive updates, swift problem resolution, and clear guidance from quote to delivery. The calm voice when freight hits a snag.
Why It's Important
It cements trust, reduces churn, and turns hiccups into loyalty moments. Service is the memory customers keep.
How to Improve Customer Service Skills
Make it sharp and human:
Learn the customer’s playbook: Know their constraints, seasonality, and service priorities. Tailor your approach.
Communicate early and often: No black holes. Confirm milestones; escalate exceptions quickly.
Use live tracking: Provide accurate status and ETA insights so customers aren’t guessing.
Gather feedback: Short surveys, quick follow-ups, open loops closed fast.
Train for empathy and clarity: Scripts help, but judgment and tone matter more. Practice both.
Make problems smaller and answers faster. People remember that.
How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume
6. Oracle SCM
Oracle SCM unifies planning, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and order management. For freight, its transportation tools optimize shipments, capacity, and settlement—connecting operations to finance with traceable transactions.
Why It's Important
It boosts visibility, trims costs, and coordinates partners across the chain. One platform, cleaner execution.
How to Improve Oracle SCM Skills
Get more from the stack:
Integrate deeply: Link Oracle transportation capabilities with ERP, WMS, and carrier networks for real-time flows.
Automate the routine: Standardize freight audit, document creation, and status updates to reduce manual touch.
Exploit analytics: Track freight spend, service, mode mix, and variance to guide action—not just reports.
Enable collaboration: Use shared portals and standardized data so carriers and suppliers stay aligned.
Invest in training: Build internal experts, publish SOPs, and review new releases for features worth adopting.
Tighter integration, fewer errors, better control.
How to Display Oracle SCM Skills on Your Resume
7. Freight Optimization
Freight optimization aligns mode, route, load, and carrier choices to move more with less. Fewer empty miles, tighter consolidation, better service.
Why It's Important
It carves out cost savings and improves reliability—vital in volatile markets with shifting capacity.
How to Improve Freight Optimization Skills
Turn the dials that matter:
Use smart tools: Route planning, rating, and what-if scenario engines expose cheaper, faster options.
Consolidate intelligently: Build loads that honor time windows and cube without breaking SLAs.
Mine your data: Review dwell, tender acceptance, claims, and lane profitability. Act on patterns.
Strengthen carrier partnerships: Share forecasts, commit volumes, and negotiate based on performance.
Iterate continuously: Experiment with modes, schedules, and pooling. Keep what wins.
Optimization is never done—it compounds.
How to Display Freight Optimization Skills on Your Resume
8. Compliance Knowledge
Compliance knowledge spans transport regulations, customs rules, safety standards, and environmental requirements. It’s the difference between smooth clearance and costly stops.
Why It's Important
It prevents fines, delays, and reputational damage while keeping people and cargo safe. Legal, clean, and on time.
How to Improve Compliance Knowledge Skills
Stay sharp and current:
Monitor regulatory updates: Track changes from customs authorities, transport safety agencies, and international bodies.
Pursue relevant training: Certifications and periodic refreshers keep procedures aligned with the latest rules.
Join professional communities: Share best practices and interpretations; compare approaches to tricky scenarios.
Standardize documentation: Create checklists and templates for bills, manifests, declarations, and permits.
Audit and improve: Review shipments for compliance gaps; fix root causes, not just symptoms.
Clarity reduces friction. Preparation avoids stoppage.
How to Display Compliance Knowledge Skills on Your Resume
9. Microsoft Excel
Excel organizes, analyzes, and shares logistics data—schedules, inventories, costs, carrier scorecards—all in one malleable grid.
Why It's Important
Flexible models, quick pivots, faster insights. It’s the daily workhorse for freight analysis and reporting.
How to Improve Microsoft Excel Skills
Make your sheets sing:
Use logistics templates: Start with structured sheets for routing, shipment logs, and cost tracking.
Master shortcuts: Navigate and edit at speed; minutes saved add up.
Lean on PivotTables: Summarize lanes, carriers, SKUs, and time windows without writing code.
Know the right functions: INDEX/MATCH or XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, TEXT functions, IF/IFS—clean joins and tidy summaries.
Automate with macros: Record or script repetitive updates and formatting.
Data validation and conditional formatting: Prevent bad inputs; spotlight exceptions instantly.
Connect to data sources: Pull from CSVs, databases, or APIs to reduce manual updates.
Use Power Query and Power Pivot: Transform messy data and model at scale.
Less manual effort, more signal. That’s the point.
How to Display Microsoft Excel Skills on Your Resume
10. Time Management
Time management is the choreography of tasks—dispatching, tracking, confirming, problem-solving—so shipments hit their marks and teams aren’t overwhelmed.
Why It's Important
It keeps schedules intact, reduces fire drills, and preserves capacity for real exceptions. Productivity with breathing room.
How to Improve Time Management Skills
Cut noise, keep flow:
Prioritize with intent: Separate urgent from important. Plan your day, then defend it.
Use the right tools: Calendars, queues, and dashboards that mirror your workflow—not fight it.
Create clear channels: Define when to call, when to chat, when to email. Reduce context switching.
Time block: Group similar tasks. Protect deep work for planning and analysis.
Keep learning: Refine processes monthly. Trim rituals that don’t pay off.
Small changes cascade into calmer days and better on-time rates.
How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume
11. Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is spotting the snag, isolating the cause, and fixing it fast—weather, capacity crunches, customs holds, damaged freight, you name it.
Why It's Important
It keeps freight moving and customers informed. Resilience in action.
How to Improve Problem-Solving Skills
Build a repeatable muscle:
Map the system: Understand how orders, inventory, transport, and billing connect. You’ll see issues sooner.
Use structured methods: 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, A3 thinking. Clear cause, clean countermeasure.
Run simulations: Work through “what ifs” for weather, strikes, or system outages. Prepare playbooks.
Leverage tech: Alerts, geofencing, and exception dashboards help you act before small problems grow teeth.
Improve communication: Short, precise updates; defined escalation paths. Confusion wastes time.
Capture lessons: Close the loop. Update SOPs so the same fire doesn’t reignite.
Calm minds, clear steps, quick recoveries.
How to Display Problem-Solving Skills on Your Resume
12. TMS (Transportation Management System)
A TMS is the control tower for freight: plan loads, route shipments, select carriers, track progress, handle exceptions, and settle freight bills on one platform.
Why It's Important
It streamlines planning, execution, and optimization—reducing cost and latency while raising reliability.
How to Improve TMS (Transportation Management System) Skills
Turn your TMS into a force multiplier:
Integrate end-to-end: Connect ERP, WMS, and CRM so orders, inventory, and deliveries align automatically.
Clean your data: Standardize locations, items, accessorials, and carrier codes. Analytics only sing with good inputs.
Automate: Auto-tendering, status updates, document creation, and freight audit save hours and prevent errors.
Train deeply: Onboard users with role-based workflows; refresh on new features; publish cheat sheets.
Boost carrier collaboration: Use portals and EDI/API for fast acceptances, live tracking, and accurate invoicing.
Review and iterate: Quarterly scorecards, backlog reviews, and roadmap checks keep the system evolving.
When the TMS is tuned, everything else gets simpler.
How to Display TMS (Transportation Management System) Skills on Your Resume
