Top 12 Import Coordinator Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the fast-paced world of international trade, an Import Coordinator keeps goods flowing cleanly across borders. To stand out, showcase a balanced mix of technical know-how and practical judgment—regulations, logistics, data fluency, and crisp coordination all working in tandem.

Import Coordinator Skills

1. Logistics Management
2. SAP
3. Customs Regulations
4. Supply Chain Coordination
5. Inventory Control
6. Oracle SCM
7. Freight Forwarding
8. Compliance Monitoring
9. Negotiation
10. Microsoft Excel
11. Documentation Accuracy
12. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

1. Logistics Management

Logistics Management plans, executes, and governs the movement and storage of goods and related information from origin to destination. For an Import Coordinator, that means steering shipments through booking, transit, customs, and final delivery without drama or waste.

Why It's Important

It keeps timelines tight, costs lean, inventory balanced, and customers satisfied. When logistics runs smoothly, everything else gets easier.

How to Improve Logistics Management Skills

1. Adopt smart tools: Use transportation, visibility, and document-control systems for real-time tracking, automated alerts, and cleaner data.
2. Tighten handoffs: Set clear SLAs and checkpoints with suppliers, carriers, brokers, and warehouses; confirm responsibilities up front.
3. Iterate relentlessly: Review cycle times, dwell points, and exceptions; refine routes, carriers, and processes based on evidence.

How to Display Logistics Management Skills on Your Resume

2. SAP

SAP is enterprise software that unifies purchasing, inventory, logistics, finance, and more. In imports, it helps track POs, receipts, costs, compliance data, and shipment progress in one place.

Why It's Important

It reduces errors, surfaces real-time status, connects teams, and creates auditable records—vital when shipments and regulations move fast.

How to Improve SAP Skills

1. Master the core modules: MM, SD, and basic FI touch almost every import flow; know transactions, tables, and reports.
2. Streamline workflows: Configure fields, tolerances, and approvals to mirror your import process; remove extra clicks.
3. Protect data quality: Use validation rules and controls so material masters, vendor data, and incoterms stay clean.
4. Automate the repetitive: Leverage SAP Build Process Automation to cut manual keystrokes and reduce mistakes.
5. Integrate wisely: Connect SAP with customs, freight, and WMS tools through SAP Integration Suite for seamless updates.
6. Stay current: Keep pace with releases and best practices; build a feedback loop with power users for continual tweaks.

How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume

3. Customs Regulations

Customs regulations govern how goods enter and leave a country—classification, valuation, origin, licensing, duties, and restrictions. An Import Coordinator ensures shipments comply, documents align, and entries clear.

Why It's Important

Compliance avoids penalties and delays, preserves margins, and keeps cargo moving without last-minute surprises.

How to Improve Customs Regulations Skills

1. Standardize classification and origin: Use the Harmonized System correctly, document origin, and maintain rulings.
2. Digitize the flow: Shift to electronic documentation and data-sharing with brokers and partners to speed clearance.
3. Risk-manage entries: Focus checks on high-risk SKUs, suppliers, and lanes; sample low-risk items to stay honest.
4. Stay aligned with frameworks: Keep up with the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and WCO guidance.
5. Train continuously: Refresh teams on new rules, FTAs, and valuation changes; log updates and decisions for audit trails.
6. Partner with authorities and industry: Participate in trade groups and customs consultations to anticipate changes early.

How to Display Customs Regulations Skills on Your Resume

4. Supply Chain Coordination

Supply Chain Coordination syncs the flow of goods, cash, and data across suppliers, carriers, brokers, warehouses, and customers. For imports, it’s the choreography from PO to door.

Why It's Important

Good coordination cuts lead times, reduces expediting, lowers inventory, and calms chaos when conditions shift.

How to Improve Supply Chain Coordination Skills

1. Boost visibility: Use shared trackers, milestone updates, and ETAs everyone can see and trust.
2. Strengthen supplier ties: Hold regular check-ins, set escalation paths, and agree on backup plans.
3. Align inventory tactics: Apply just-in-time principles where sensible and set safety stocks based on variability, not guessing.
4. Upgrade forecasting: Blend statistical tools with supplier collaboration to refine inbound plans.
5. Simplify documents: Standardize templates, digitize approvals, and keep one source of truth.
6. Plan for risk: Map critical lanes, dual-source where needed, and build playbooks for disruptions.
7. Keep learning: Invest in supply chain training and retrospectives to reinforce what works.

How to Display Supply Chain Coordination Skills on Your Resume

5. Inventory Control

Inventory control balances stock levels with demand. In imports, it tackles long lead times, variable transit, and duty costs while keeping service high.

Why It's Important

Too much inventory burns cash; too little hurts revenue. Smart control quiets both problems.

How to Improve Inventory Control Skills

1. Forecast with evidence: Use history, seasonality, and order patterns; review bias and error monthly.
2. Work in real time: Deploy cloud inventory systems for live receipts, adjustments, and lot/serial tracking.
3. Apply EOQ and reorder points: Set parameters by SKU based on demand and lead-time variability.
4. Segment with ABC/XYZ: Focus attention on high-value and high-variability items first.
5. Tighten supplier cadence: Negotiate smaller, more frequent shipments where feasible to smooth stock.
6. Automate identification: Use barcodes or RFID to cut manual errors and speed counts.
7. Review policies: Revisit safety stocks, MOQ, and pack sizes as conditions change; align finance, ops, and sales.
8. Train the team: Ensure everyone understands counts, adjustments, and system transactions.

How to Display Inventory Control Skills on Your Resume

6. Oracle SCM

Oracle SCM is a suite for procurement, planning, logistics, inventory, and order fulfillment. For imports, it centralizes shipment tracking, trade compliance, and supplier collaboration.

Why It's Important

It connects data end to end, supports decisions with analytics, and reduces manual work across the import lifecycle.

How to Improve Oracle SCM Skills

1. Automate the basics: Use workflows to cut data entry and standardize approvals.
2. Integrate external partners: Connect customs brokers, carriers, and WMS via Oracle Integration for clean handoffs.
3. Use analytics: Track landed cost, lead-time variance, and supplier performance to target improvements.
4. Enable collaboration: Share forecasts, ASN data, and quality feedback with suppliers in one channel.
5. Keep skills current: Train on new features regularly and collect user feedback to fine-tune setups.

How to Display Oracle SCM Skills on Your Resume

7. Freight Forwarding

Freight forwarding organizes international shipping across modes—ocean, air, truck, rail—and orchestrates documentation, booking, consolidation, and delivery.

Why It's Important

It’s the engine room of cross-border movement. Done well, it trims costs, reduces dwell time, and keeps entries clean.

How to Improve Freight Forwarding Skills

1. Use digital platforms: Book, track, and manage documents in systems that share updates automatically.
2. Communicate clearly: Establish cutoffs, naming conventions, and escalation paths; confirm changes in writing.
3. Bulletproof the paperwork: Standardize commercial invoices, packing lists, HS codes, and incoterms; run pre-departure checks.
4. Build carrier relationships: Negotiate service commitments, space guarantees during peak, and fair free-time terms.
5. Stay current on rules: Monitor government trade portals for regulatory updates instead of scrambling after the fact.
6. Improve continuously: Review exceptions, run root-cause analysis, and adjust lanes or partners when patterns emerge.

How to Display Freight Forwarding Skills on Your Resume

8. Compliance Monitoring

Compliance monitoring verifies that import activities meet laws, regulations, and internal policies—every shipment, every time.

Why It's Important

It reduces fines and seizures, protects reputation, and speeds clearance through predictable, audit-ready operations.

How to Improve Compliance Monitoring Skills

1. Track regulatory changes: Follow your national customs authority and trade administration updates on a set cadence.
2. Deploy compliance software: Global trade management tools (for example, E2open GTM or ONESOURCE Global Trade) centralize screening, embargo checks, and document control.
3. Audit routinely: Run periodic entry audits, denied-party screening tests, and valuation reviews; fix gaps fast.
4. Train and certify: Provide regular training on classification, origin, and recordkeeping; document attendance and outcomes.
5. Write it down: Maintain a practical, current import compliance manual with ownership, workflows, and KPIs.

How to Display Compliance Monitoring Skills on Your Resume

9. Negotiation

Negotiation for imports means shaping terms with suppliers, forwarders, and brokers—rates, lead times, payment, incoterms, free time, surcharges.

Why It's Important

The right terms protect margins and timelines. The wrong ones leak money and create headaches at the port.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

1. Prep with facts: Know market rates, capacity swings, and your volumes; define walk-away points.
2. Listen for interests: Surface what the other side actually needs—predictability, volume, faster pay—and trade accordingly.
3. Package proposals: Bundle concessions (longer commitment for better base rate, or volume tiers for space priority).
4. Stay flexible: Consider alternative lanes, equipment, or delivery windows to unlock value.
5. Control tone and tempo: Keep emotions level, pause when needed, and document agreements immediately.
6. Review outcomes: Post-mortem big deals; refine playbooks and clauses based on results.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

10. Microsoft Excel

Excel is the workhorse for organizing, analyzing, and reporting shipment, cost, and inventory data.

Why It's Important

It turns messy tables into clear decisions—fast. Track ETAs, landed costs, exceptions, and supplier performance without waiting on IT.

How to Improve Microsoft Excel Skills

1. Level up formulas: Get fluent with INDEX/MATCH or XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, TEXT functions, and dynamic arrays for clean analysis.
2. Pivot with purpose: Build PivotTables and PivotCharts to summarize imports by lane, SKU, or supplier.
3. Guard your data: Use Data Validation, structured tables, and named ranges to prevent bad inputs.
4. Automate routine tasks: Record macros or write basic VBA to clean files, refresh reports, and format outputs.
5. Make it visual: Apply conditional formatting to flag delays, over-budget freight, or aging inventory instantly.
6. Connect to sources: Use Power Query to pull and transform data from CSVs, databases, or APIs for up-to-date reporting.

How to Display Microsoft Excel Skills on Your Resume

11. Documentation Accuracy

Documentation accuracy means every import document—invoice, packing list, bill of lading, certificate, entry—matches facts and rules, line by line.

Why It's Important

Errors cause holds, penalties, or rework. Accuracy keeps cargo moving and audits boring, which is perfect.

How to Improve Documentation Accuracy Skills

1. Standardize templates: Lock in required fields, naming, and HS details; use checklists for each document set.
2. Reduce manual entry: Pull data from source systems and use forms with validations to prevent typos.
3. Layer reviews: Peer-check sensitive fields—classification, origin, value—before submission.
4. Keep references current: Maintain a live library of regulations, rulings, and SOPs; date-stamp updates.
5. Close the loop: Track defects, share lessons, and update templates so the same mistake doesn’t recur.
6. Train regularly: Brief teams on new trade agreements, valuation rules, and recordkeeping timelines.

How to Display Documentation Accuracy Skills on Your Resume

12. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

EDI is a standardized, system-to-system way to exchange business documents—purchase orders, ASNs, invoices—without manual rekeying. In imports, it connects buyers, sellers, forwarders, and brokers.

Why It's Important

It accelerates processing, trims errors, and creates reliable timelines from PO through clearance and receipt.

How to Improve EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Skills

1. Stick to standards: Use ANSI X12 or EDIFACT consistently across partners to avoid translation chaos.
2. Automate transformations: Map, validate, and route documents with minimal human touch.
3. Secure the flow: Encrypt data in transit and at rest; authenticate connections; log everything.
4. Test with partners: Schedule end-to-end testing for new messages and changes before go-live.
5. Monitor relentlessly: Set alerts for failures, duplicates, and timeouts; resolve quickly; document fixes.
6. Keep people sharp: Train teams on message types, error handling, and version updates.

How to Display EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Skills on Your Resume