Import export coordinator CV template and example

Download an import export coordinator CV in Word, with advice on shipping, customs documentation, freight systems, delivery performance and relevant experience.

Two-page import export coordinator CV showing Oliver Harris’s shipping experience, qualifications and skills

This import export coordinator CV template follows a sales administrator into shipping and international logistics. The Word example covers manufacturing shipments, customs-agent liaison, documentation, freight costs and delivery updates. The guide helps you present experience gained with importers, exporters, manufacturers or logistics providers.

Filename: FreeCVDownload_Import_Export_Coordinator.docx

Content of this CV template

Oliver Harris

a: Derby

t: 07700 900921

e: [email protected]

Profile

  • Import export coordinator with eight years in shipping, supporting UK manufacturing and international customer orders.
  • Experienced in sea-freight imports, European road exports and urgent courier shipments.
  • Prepare shipping documents, coordinate customs-agent instructions and resolve delivery queries with suppliers and customers.
  • Use SAP, Excel and carrier portals to maintain shipment records and support reliable dispatch planning.

Work history

April 2022 – present

Import Export Coordinator

Derwent Components, Derby

Coordinate around 65 monthly shipments of industrial components, working with purchasing, production and warehouse colleagues.

  • Arrange sea-freight imports from Asian suppliers and road exports to European customers through appointed forwarders.
  • Prepare commercial invoices, packing lists and agent instructions, checking order details and agreed delivery terms.
  • Resolve documentation queries with customs agents and retain declaration copies alongside shipment records.
  • Maintain a shared exception tracker, giving production and sales teams clear updates on delayed orders.
  • Introduced a pre-dispatch checklist; document packs returned for correction fell from 11 to four across consecutive quarters.
  • Consolidated compatible courier orders with warehouse colleagues, saving £2,400 in freight charges over six months.

September 2018 – March 2022

Shipping Administrator

Derwent Components, Derby

Supported the shipping team with bookings, export paperwork and delivery records.

  • Booked collections and confirmed packing information with the warehouse.
  • Updated SAP dispatch records and maintained proof-of-delivery files.
  • Tracked outstanding shipments and followed up missed delivery dates.
  • Checked carrier invoices against bookings and referred discrepancies.
  • Helped introduce a standard document folder for each export order.
  • Trained two colleagues in booking and document-filing routines.

July 2015 – August 2018

Sales Administrator

Midland Industrial Supplies, Derby

Provided order-processing support for a regional industrial supplies distributor.

  • Entered customer orders and confirmed stock availability.
  • Liaised with the warehouse on dispatch dates and shortages.
  • Answered customer enquiries about orders and deliveries.
  • Processed returns and gathered information for credit notes.
  • Maintained customer account and delivery-address records.
  • Prepared weekly outstanding-order reports for the sales team.

Qualifications & training

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Business — Derby College, 2015.

Seven GCSEs, including English and Mathematics — Derby, 2013.

Employer training: export documentation and Incoterms 2020, 2025; SAP shipping processes, 2022.

Interests

Cycling, cooking and watching live music.

How to write an import export coordinator CV

An import export coordinator CV should make the movement of goods easy to understand: what you shipped, where it went, how it travelled and which parts of the process you handled. The title can cover a manufacturer’s shipping desk, an importer’s supply chain or a logistics provider managing customers’ freight. Establishing that context helps an employer recognise relevant experience quickly.

The strongest evidence usually combines accurate administration with practical coordination. A well-prepared document pack matters because it supports the shipment; a delivery update matters because someone can act on it. Connect your work with those operational needs throughout the CV.

Define your shipping experience in the profile

Use the opening profile to identify your main experience, such as sea-freight imports for a retailer, road exports for a manufacturer or airfreight movements for a forwarder. Add the regions or trade routes most relevant to the vacancy and one or two capabilities that distinguish your application.

Oliver’s example establishes manufacturing, import and export experience, the freight modes he knows and his work with customs agents. It gives the reader a useful starting point before the employment history adds detail.

Tailor the emphasis to the next role. A position supporting production may value inbound material availability and communication with purchasing. A customer-facing forwarding role may place more weight on quotations, overseas agents and keeping several customers’ shipments moving. Your profile can bring the most relevant part of your background forward.

Show the scope of each role before listing tasks

Introduce a recent job with the business setting, goods, typical shipment volume and team relationships. A monthly volume, regular trailer schedule or number of active customers gives the reader a sense of the workload. Explain whether that figure describes your own desk or the wider operation.

Then describe the stages you managed. These might include collecting supplier information, obtaining freight quotes, booking transport, preparing documents, coordinating clearance, arranging warehouse receipt and following delivery through to completion.

“End-to-end shipping” becomes more useful when the reader can see what that meant in your role. If you coordinated the movement through an appointed forwarder, say so. If you worked for the forwarder and dealt directly with carriers and overseas agents, make those relationships visible.

Give freight modes and goods the right amount of detail

Include relevant sea, air, road, rail or courier experience, with enough detail to show familiarity with the operation. For sea freight, container and groupage experience may matter; for road freight, regular European trailer movements may be central. An urgent courier desk can demonstrate a different kind of prioritisation.

The nature of the goods can be just as useful. Retail stock, engineering parts, repair returns, perishables and temperature-sensitive products bring different documentation and service requirements. Select the details that explain the work you performed.

For specialist shipments, describe the additional responsibility you held and relevant training. An aerospace or pharmaceutical application may benefit from precise sector experience. A general coordinator CV can remain focused on its own freight and goods background without becoming a catalogue of every specialist process.

Explain your contribution to customs and shipping documents

Group documentation around the work it supported. Commercial invoices, packing lists, transport documents, agent instructions and declaration records can show a coherent process when they appear alongside the shipment responsibilities.

Use verbs that explain your contribution: prepared, checked, supplied, submitted, reconciled or retained. Preparing instructions for a customs agent and submitting declarations yourself are different kinds of experience. Both can be valuable, and the wording should make the distinction easy to understand.

If you have declaration-entry experience, identify the systems and types of movement involved. If your role centred on broker liaison, show how you gathered information, answered queries and checked the returned records. Oliver’s CV uses that second approach, which suits his manufacturer’s shipping role.

Knowledge of Incoterms, commodity information, origin documents or particular customs procedures is strongest when connected to a task. A short account of checking shipment instructions against agreed delivery terms gives the reader more evidence than a detached list of terminology.

Show how you kept colleagues and customers informed

Shipping coordination often connects teams that need different information. Purchasing may need a supplier collection date, production may need a realistic arrival forecast, and a customer may need an explanation of a revised delivery. Show how you turned shipment updates into information those people could use.

Useful examples include maintaining an exception report, agreeing priorities with the warehouse, obtaining missing documents from suppliers or coordinating an urgent replacement shipment. Identify the parties involved and the issue you helped resolve.

For international communication, give languages and practical use where relevant. Regular contact with overseas suppliers or agents can also demonstrate that you are comfortable managing handovers across different working hours and keeping a clear written record.

Choose achievements that reveal operational improvement

Good results can relate to document quality, delivery visibility, freight charges, invoice queries or the time needed to retrieve a shipment file. Start with an improvement you contributed to, then explain what changed and how the result was measured.

Oliver’s document-checklist achievement includes the number of packs returned for correction in two consecutive quarters. His freight saving names the practical change and a six-month period. Both figures are understandable because the action and measurement sit together.

For delivery performance, explain the measure sufficiently for a reader to interpret it. Dispatch by the agreed date, arrival within the booked window and completion of customs clearance describe different outcomes. A short phrase can clarify which one you helped improve.

A useful achievement can also be qualitative: a clearer handover, an organised audit file, a successful peak-period operation or a new colleague brought up to speed. Describe the contribution and why it helped. Shared improvements read well when the CV makes your part in the work visible.

Present systems through the work you did with them

List the systems relevant to the vacancy, then add practical evidence in the employment history. An ERP entry might cover order and dispatch records; a transport or freight system might cover bookings and job files; a carrier portal might cover labels, tracking and collection requests.

For Excel, identify useful tasks such as reconciling invoices, maintaining an exception tracker or reporting open shipments. Particular functions belong on the CV when they help explain your capability. A concise account of a report used by the team is often more persuasive than a broad software rating.

Where the target employer uses a different system, explain the process you already know. Experience keeping accurate shipment data and resolving discrepancies gives context to your ability to learn another platform. Keep software names easy to scan without allowing the skills section to displace the shipping evidence.

Include commercial awareness at the level of your role

Coordinators may compare freight options, check invoices, maintain cost records or flag additional charges. Forwarding roles can also involve quotations, accruals and job profitability. Select the responsibilities you held and explain how they supported service or cost control.

For example, an invoice-checking responsibility becomes stronger when it identifies the comparison you made and how discrepancies were resolved. A consolidation example can show that you worked with the warehouse and customer requirements as well as the freight price.

Experienced applicants may have helped review forwarder performance, improve a booking process or establish a new shipping route. These examples can demonstrate progression towards a senior coordinator or supervisory role, particularly when the CV explains the scope of the decision and the colleagues involved.

Make qualifications and development easy to interpret

Give the full title, provider and date of relevant qualifications in international trade, logistics, business or supply chain. Short courses can sit in a separate training entry, especially when they relate directly to export documentation, customs processes or the goods being handled.

Workplace training is useful evidence too. Identify its subject and context, as Oliver does for SAP shipping processes and export documentation. For specialist or time-limited training, include the relevant completion or renewal details so the employer can understand its current status.

The balance between qualifications and experience will depend on the vacancy. An established coordinator can lead with recent operational evidence. An applicant completing a relevant course can place that learning closer to the top, alongside practical work that demonstrates organisation and accurate records.

Build a first coordinator application from connected work

Sales administration, purchasing support, warehouse administration and customer service can all provide relevant evidence. Bring forward order processing, delivery enquiries, stock information, document checks and communication with transport providers. The sales administrator example may help when that is the starting point for your move.

Show how your responsibility developed. You may have started with domestic bookings, supported an export desk during leave or taken ownership of tracking open shipments. A clear account of that progression helps an employer see the connection between your current work and the role sought.

For an experienced applicant, reduce detail on routine earlier administration and give more space to shipment ownership, specialist knowledge and improvements. The finished CV should leave a clear picture of the operation you understand and the contribution you can make to keeping it running well.

Import Export Coordinator CV FAQs

Should I use Import Coordinator or Import Export Coordinator as my CV title?

Use a profile heading that fits the role you are seeking, and retain your actual job titles in the employment history. If most of your experience is in imports, make that clear in the opening lines and explain any export work separately. This helps an employer understand the balance of your experience while recognising the connection to the vacancy.

Can I move from sea freight into an airfreight role?

Bring forward the processes that transfer: documentation, customer updates, carrier liaison, shipment records and managing deadlines. Give your existing freight mode clearly, then include any airfreight bookings, courier work or relevant training. A vacancy offering development may value that operational foundation; a specialist airfreight role will usually need more detailed evidence of the specific work advertised.

Should CDS appear on my CV if a customs agent submits the declarations?

Describe your role as preparing clearance instructions, supplying information or reviewing declaration records, as appropriate. If you used software to enter or submit declarations, identify that experience separately. The recruiter can then see exactly where your customs knowledge sits in the shipping process.

How should I present overseas import and export experience?

Name the country or region in which you worked, the main trade routes and the systems or procedures you used. Then emphasise the shipment coordination, documentation and communication that are relevant to the UK vacancy. Any subsequent UK work or training can sit alongside this, giving the employer a clear view of both your international background and local experience.

Are languages worth including for this role?

Yes, when they are useful to the routes, suppliers or customers involved. Give a clear level and, where relevant, a brief example of workplace use, such as handling routine supplier calls in French. Keep language information proportionate to its importance in the vacancy; operational shipping experience should remain easy to find.

How can I show several short shipping assignments?

Group assignments under the agency when that accurately reflects your employment, with dates and brief details of the main placements. Highlight differences that matter, such as import tracking for a retailer and export administration for a manufacturer. A substantial placement with wider responsibility can have its own entry so the progression remains visible.

Should I attach shipping documents or customs forms to an application?

A normal CV can explain the documents you prepared and the checks you performed without attachments. If an employer asks for a work sample, an anonymised process outline or a specially prepared sample can demonstrate the relevant skill. The useful evidence is your understanding of the work and your contribution to it.

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