Material Handler Job Description: Template, Duties, Requirements & Pay (2026)
A material handler moves product through a building — receiving, putting away, picking, staging and loading — usually on a pallet jack, a scanner and their feet. Below is a copy-paste material handler job description template, the requirements worth keeping, the injury language you should actually include, and what it costs to reach warehouse candidates on social, from Boostpoint's campaign data.
What a material handler does
Material handlers keep product moving. On a typical shift that means receiving inbound trailers and checking counts against the paperwork, putting stock away to a location, picking orders to a list or a scanner, staging pallets by door and load sequence, wrapping and loading outbound, and cycle-counting whatever the system says should be there. The equipment is usually an electric pallet jack, sometimes a sit-down or reach truck, and always a handheld or wrist-mounted scanner.
The BLS groups the work under hand laborers and material movers — 6,917,800 people in 2025 with about 904,200 openings projected each year over the decade, and no formal educational credential required to enter. It also says something a job description should not hide: this group has "some of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses of all occupations", with sprains, strains and overexertion from moving heavy objects and bending in awkward positions the common causes.
The title itself is worth deciding deliberately. Warehouse associate, material handler, picker-packer, stocker and warehouse worker are frequently the same job with different names, and candidates search the one their last employer used. If your posting says "Material Handler II" and your market says "warehouse associate", the internal grade is costing you reach.
Material handler job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and cut anything that does not apply. It is ordered the way warehouse candidates read: pay, shift, location, equipment, then the rest.
Job title
Material Handler — [1st / 2nd / 3rd] Shift, [Full-time / Part-time], [Facility type]
Summary
[Company] is hiring material handlers for [2nd] shift at our [distribution center / plant] in [city, state]. Pay is $[XX.XX]/hour plus $[X.XX] shift differential. Schedule is [Mon–Thu, four 10s, 6pm–4:30am], with [Friday through Sunday] off. You will [receive, put away, pick and load] using [an electric pallet jack and an RF scanner] — we train and certify on both.
Responsibilities
- Receive inbound freight, verify counts and condition against the packing list, and report discrepancies
- Put away stock to system locations and keep location accuracy above [98%]
- Pick orders to an RF scanner or pick list at the posted rate; stage by door and load sequence
- Wrap, label and load outbound pallets; secure freight for transit
- Operate an electric pallet jack and [reach truck / sit-down forklift] safely and within certification
- Complete cycle counts and correct discrepancies in [WMS name]
- Keep aisles, docks and staging areas clear; complete daily equipment checks
Requirements
- Able to lift up to [50] lbs repeatedly and to stand, walk, bend and reach for a full [10]-hour shift
- Comfortable working in [ambient / refrigerated / freezer] conditions at [temperature]
- Available for [Mon–Thu, 6pm start], including [mandatory overtime during peak, announced a week ahead]
- Reliable transport to [location] for a [6pm] start
Preferred
- Previous warehouse, distribution or manufacturing experience
- Current forklift or reach truck certification (we certify if you do not have one)
- RF scanner or [WMS name] experience
- Conversational [language]
Schedule and pay
- $[XX.XX]/hour base; $[X.XX] 2nd shift and $[X.XX] 3rd shift differential
- [Four 10s, Mon–Thu] with [three] consecutive days off
- Overtime [available / mandatory during peak], [paid at time and a half after 40]
- [Weekly pay]
Benefits
- Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60]
- Paid time off and [6] paid holidays
- [401(k) with X% match]
- [Safety boot allowance] and [cold-weather gear provided]
- [Forklift certification paid] and [a posted path to lead, then supervisor]
Requirements: what to keep, what to soften, and what quietly costs you applicants
Warehouse postings are the most copy-pasted documents in hourly hiring, and the copied lines are usually the expensive ones.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Lifting and physical demands | Keep them, and be specific. A weight, a shift length and the temperature are honest, useful and do not deter people who already do this work. Vague "must be able to perform physical labor" tells a candidate nothing and reads as concealment. |
| Forklift certification | Soften it. Requiring a current certification removes people you could certify in an afternoon. "We certify if you do not have one" is a recruiting line, not a concession. |
| High school diploma | Usually drop it. The BLS lists no formal educational credential for this occupation, and in a market with roughly 904,200 annual openings a diploma screen buys you a longer vacancy rather than a better hire. |
| "1–2 years of warehouse experience" | Use it only if the equipment genuinely requires it. Otherwise it removes the people most likely to take a second-shift job in your zip code. |
| Mandatory overtime | Disclose it. Peak overtime discovered in week three is one of the most common reasons a warehouse hire quits before day 90. Saying "mandatory during peak, announced a week ahead" costs you a few applicants and saves you several hires. |
| Résumé upload | Remove it. This is the single most expensive field on a mobile application for this role. Take name, phone, shift availability and equipment experience; get everything else at the interview. |
The line most worth adding is the one almost nobody includes: the days off, together, in the first two lines. "Four 10s, off Friday through Sunday" is a stronger offer than fifty cents an hour and it costs you nothing to say.
How to customize it for your setting
Distribution center
Volume and rate are the honest content: units per hour, orders per shift, whether the rate is posted. Experienced pickers judge a building by whether the standard is stated and whether it moves. If you run peak seasons, say when and how much overtime that means.
Manufacturing plant
The job is line-side supply rather than order picking. Say so — the people who want it are different. Name what feeds what, and whether the role rotates between line supply and shipping.
Cold storage and freezer
State the temperature, the gear you provide and the rotation out of the freezer. This is not a detail to save for the interview; it is the whole decision for most candidates, and the ones who take it want the differential that comes with it.
Third-party logistics
Candidates want to know whose building they are working in and whether the assignment is temp-to-hire. Ambiguity here reads as a bait-and-switch even when it is not. State the conversion path and the timeline.
What it costs to reach material handlers on social
Across 82 warehouse and production campaign-months in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the median cost per applicant was $9.83, with the middle half of campaigns landing between $3.15 and $18.72 and a volume-weighted average of $4.44. 20% of people who clicked went on to finish the application — one of the healthier rates in the dataset, and the reason warehouse hiring on social is usually cheap when the form is short.
That number is advertising cost only. It buys an applicant, not a hire, and hires are recorded in your applicant tracking system rather than in an ad platform. The wide band is the useful part: a campaign at $3.15 and one at $18.72 are usually running the same role in similar markets, and the difference is almost entirely how many questions the form asks. The warehouse-specific detail is in our warehouse recruiting playbook.
If you are hiring material handlers rather than describing the job, the recruiting side — where warehouse workers actually are, what the ad has to say, and what an applicant costs to reach — is on our manufacturing and warehouse recruiting page.
Writing the ad version
The template above is for your ATS and careers page. The advertisement that runs on Facebook or Instagram is much shorter and answers three questions in the first two lines: how much, what shift, where. Something like: "Material Handler — $19.50/hr + $1.50 night differential. Four 10s, Mon–Thu, off Fri–Sun. [City]. Pallet jack and scanner — we train both. Apply in 60 seconds, no résumé."
Then two or three knockout questions on the form — shift availability, lifting, distance — and nothing else. Every added field costs completions, and each screening question buys precision with volume. The mechanics are in our candidate conversion rate guide, and fifteen worked examples are in our help wanted ad examples library.
Frequently asked questions
What does a material handler do?
Receives inbound freight and verifies counts, puts stock away to system locations, picks orders to a scanner or list, stages and loads outbound pallets, runs cycle counts, and operates a pallet jack or forklift within certification. In a plant the same title often means line-side supply instead of order picking, which is why naming the setting in the posting matters.
How much do material handlers make?
The BLS median for hand laborers and material movers was $18.38 an hour, or $38,220 a year, in 2025. Within that group, May 2025 medians ran from $36,280 for hand packers and packagers to $40,240 for laborers and freight, stock and material movers and $49,690 for refuse and recyclable material collectors.
What qualifications does a material handler need?
No formal educational credential, according to the BLS. Most employers require the ability to lift a stated weight and to work a full shift on their feet, plus availability for the shift being hired. Forklift certification is commonly listed but is cheap and quick to provide after hiring, so treating it as preferred rather than required keeps your applicant pool much larger.
Is material handling dangerous work?
The BLS states this occupational group has some of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses of all occupations, most commonly sprains, strains and overexertion from moving heavy objects and bending in awkward positions. Stating the physical demands plainly in the posting is both honest and legally useful, and it does not deter people who already do the work.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring material handlers?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where warehouse workers are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment, outlook, sub-occupation medians and injury statements: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Hand Laborers and Material Movers (last modified August 27, 2026; 2025 wage and employment data, May 2025 medians by sub-occupation), read August 28, 2026. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — warehouse and production role family, 82 campaign-months, advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.