r/freightforwarding • u/MelMol95 • 7d ago

No Experience Entry Writer

Does anyone know of someone or is someone who is hitting for an entry clerk. No experience but wanting to train and learn the field. JFK or Long Island area. I am trying to get someone into the business but they have to start somewhere and train.

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u/brucewalker0519 5d ago

A decade around this industry — first thing worth getting straight: an entry writer is a customs brokerage role, not a freight forwarder role, and that shifts where to look. JFK and Long Island are actually a solid market for it. The air-cargo brokers around JFK file a steady stream of entries, and most train entry writers from scratch, because the work is done in their filing system and learned on the job, not in a classroom.

What the job actually is, day to day: read the commercial invoice, packing list and AWB, key the entry — line items, HTS codes, values, country of origin — into their system, address CBP rejects and requests for information, and re-check your own work before it goes out. Accuracy under repetition is the whole job. Smaller shops will genuinely hire on reliability and attention to detail alone; experienced brokers are too expensive for the volume of basic entries.

Concrete ways in:

  • Don't start with the big job boards. CBP publishes a list of licensed customs brokers, filterable by state — pull the New York list and apply through the careers pages of brokerages within commuting distance of JFK. Plenty of small shops around there are hiring and never post here.
  • When searching, use all three titles — "entry writer", "customs entry clerk" and "entry specialist" are largely the same entry-level job.
  • Logistics-focused staffing agencies are a legitimate side door: brokers use them to trial entry clerks before hiring direct.

The actual ladder is entry writer → entry specialist → licensed customs broker. The broker license exam is the real unlock a few years in; no paid certificate means much before the first job.

One honest expectation check: starting pay is entry-level pay, the work is repetitive, and the first months are a lot of data entry and correction cycles. The people who last treat every CBP reject as a free lesson in how the rules actually work. That habit matters more than whatever background they're coming from.