Couriers and Messenger Pick up and deliver messages, documents, packages, and other items between offices or departments within an establishment or directly to other business concerns, traveling by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, automobile, or public conveyance.
Couriers and Messenger is Also Know as
In different settings, Couriers and Messenger is titled as
- Courier
- Driver
- Laboratory Courier
- Mail Carrier
- Mail Clerk
- Mailroom Courier
- Messenger
- Security Messenger
- Transporter
- Vehicle Delivery Worker
Education and Training of Couriers and Messenger
Couriers and Messenger is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Couriers and Messenger
Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.
Education Required for Couriers and Messenger
These occupations usually require a high school diploma.
Degrees Related to Couriers and Messenger
Training Required for Couriers and Messenger
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Couriers and Messenger in different industries are
- Postal Service Mail Carriers
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service
- Light Truck Drivers
- Postal Service Clerks
- Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks
- Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators
- Cargo and Freight Agents
- Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance
- Driver/Sales Workers
- Baggage Porters and Bellhops
- Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
- Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand
- Freight Forwarders
- Order Clerks
- Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors
- Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters
- Shuttle Drivers and Chauffeurs
- First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators
What Do Couriers and Messenger do?
- Walk, ride bicycles, drive vehicles, or use public conveyances to reach destinations to deliver messages or materials.
- Load vehicles with listed goods, ensuring goods are loaded correctly and taking precautions with hazardous goods.
- Unload and sort items collected along delivery routes.
- Receive messages or materials to be delivered, and information on recipients, such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, and delivery instructions, communicated via telephone, two-way radio, or in person.
- Plan and follow the most efficient routes for delivering goods.
- Deliver messages and items, such as newspapers, documents, and packages, between establishment departments and to other establishments and private homes.
- Sort items to be delivered according to the delivery route.
- Obtain signatures and payments, or arrange for recipients to make payments.
- Record information, such as items received and delivered and recipients' responses to messages.
- Check with home offices after completed deliveries to confirm deliveries and collections and to receive instructions for other deliveries.
- Perform routine maintenance on delivery vehicles, such as monitoring fluid levels and replenishing fuel.
- Use telephone to deliver verbal messages.
- Open, sort, and distribute incoming mail.
- Perform general office or clerical work, such as filing materials, operating duplicating machines, or running errands.
- Collect, seal, and stamp outgoing mail, using postage meters and envelope sealers.
- Unload goods from large trucks, and load them onto smaller delivery vehicles.
- Deliver and pick up medical records, lab specimens, and medications to and from hospitals and other medical facilities.
Qualities of Good Couriers and Messenger
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Couriers and Messenger
- Bank deposit bags
- Bicycles
- Computer data input scanners
- Copy machines
- Delivery trucks
- Document shredders
- Envelope sealers
- Global positioning system GPS devices
- Handheld radio frequency RF scanners
- Hard hats
- Hazardous material packaging
- High-reach forklifts
- Hydraulic lift tables
- Laser facsimile machines
- Lockboxes
- Mail addressing machines
- Mobile radios
- Mopeds
- Motorcycles
- Pallet jacks
- Passenger vans
- Passenger vehicles
- Personal computers
- Postage meters
- Protective safety glasses
- Safety belts
- Stamping equipment
- Stepladders
- Tablet computers
- Warehouse forklifts
- Wireless barcode scanners
Technology Skills required for Couriers and Messenger
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Word
- Route mapping software