Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an inventory clerk and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An inventory clerk is responsible for compiling and maintaining records of materials, equipment, merchandise, stock, or supplies in a store of a company manually or using the computer. He/she ensures the record of goods supplied and the available stock tallies as well as monitoring any inconsistencies.
Other duties for an individual in this position include comparing office records with inventories. They also determine when there is a need for supply replenishment and also conducts a physical count to ascertain the inventories are in order. Lastly, he/she prepares reports including price lists, shortages, and inventory balance among others to facilitate effective inventory management.
Core Skills Required to be an Inventory Clerk
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An inventory clerk should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Storytelling:
Storytelling is a great social and cultural activity of sharing stories with an aim to educate, entertain, and instill moral values which are mostly used in the cultural oral storytelling events.
An Inventory Clerk must learn the secret of inspiring and connecting with both the customers and staff at a reasonable level through the stories he shares that can be interpreted differently depending on the lens shared through.
Facilitation:
Facilitation is making tasks or life easy for others while ensuring the daily running of successful meetings or workshops or business at large.
An Inventory Clerk must use facilitation to process and structure a system that meets the needs of either an individual or a team to help them achieve their goals as well as add value to their lives by making sure each participates.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
An Inventory Clerk needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Dependability:
Dependability is the characteristic of being able to be counted on and relied upon by providing services that be trusted within a period.
An Inventory Clerk needs to be dependable and hire reliable employees who can be counted on as consistent and beneficial to the business, building their niche as an essential element of the larger team without worrying about bringing less than your efforts.
Enthusiasm:
Enthusiasm is an intense enjoyment or a lively interest in a certain thing with a zest and a strong belief that can be felt by those around you.
An Inventory Clerk ought to be enthusiastic as well as create a friendly atmosphere that makes the staff comfortable with the surroundings, with the other employees to create a less passive working place.
Self Confidence:
Self Confidence is the ability to know who you are and what you are capable of doing which shows in your behavior, your body language, how you speak, etc.
An Inventory Clerk must be confident enough to inspire confidence in others while encouraging them to handle daily tasks and their personal lives with self-confidence that will, in turn, produce a well-rounded individual.
Personal Drive:
Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.
An Inventory Clerk needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.
Using Common Sense:
Using Common Sense is the ability to see what is missing in a situation or a project and supplying it without necessarily being assigned or asked to do it.
An Inventory Clerk needs to creatively train his employees always to see the missing element that is typically crucial in any workplace or project and take the opportunity to do business out of it.
Long Range Planning:
Long Range Planning is setting long-term goals and objectives for your business or project to ensure its growth and sustainability is reached by all the employees.
An Inventory Clerk needs creativity in defining long-term goals that ought to be proactive, putting together a full employee focused management strategy that analyzes the major initiatives and translates them into functional goals that employees handle.
Organizational Skills:
Organizational Skills is the ability to make use of time, energy and resources available in the most efficient manner to achieve their goal.
An Inventory Clerk should organize the work for the employees to ensure overall organization, planning, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines is handled most efficiently by each employee for both personal and professional growth.
Hard Skills Required to be an Inventory Clerk
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An inventory clerk should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.