Hire a material handler in Greater Montreal
A material handler role either fills quickly or not at all, depending on the shift and the pay you post. Here you get a job description to copy as is, eight interview questions that separate a solid candidate from one passing through, the Greater Montreal pay benchmark region by region, and the things that make this hire fail.
Job description to copy
Replace what is in brackets, then post it as is.
Material handler
Location: [city], Greater Montreal · Schedule: [day / evening / night], [number] h per week
Pay: [to be set] (benchmark: median $22/h in Quebec, $21/h in Montreal (Job Bank))
Responsibilities
- Load and unload trucks and trailers at the dock, by hand and with a pallet jack.
- Palletize: stack, balance, wrap and label loads before shipping.
- Handle non-palletized loads: bags, drums, long parts, loose goods.
- Devan containers and sort incoming goods at receiving.
- Count, weigh, sort and pack products against the shipping documents.
- Feed production stations and clear finished goods away.
- Report damaged cartons, unstable pallets and any count discrepancy.
- Follow WHMIS instructions and the dock traffic rules.
- Keep the work area clean and the aisles clear.
- Take part in inventory counts and end-of-shift checks.
Requirements
- Able to lift, push, pull and carry across a full shift, standing.
- Confirmed availability for the shift on offer, weekends included if the role calls for it.
- Protective footwear meeting CAN/CSA-Z195.
- Understands safety instructions and shipping documents.
- Reads labels and item codes, and counts received quantities accurately.
- Works as a crew, at the pace the arriving trucks set.
- Punctual and reliable, confirmed with references.
- No card is required by law for this role. If you want someone on a lift truck, that is a forklift operator position, with the training set out in section 256.3 of Quebec's occupational health and safety regulation.
Assets
- Valid forklift card, training aligned with CSA B335.
- Experience on an electric pallet jack or a walkie stacker.
- WHMIS training already completed and current.
- Experience devanning ocean containers.
- Experience in a refrigerated or frozen warehouse.
- Working English or French for cross-border transport paperwork.
What we offer
[benefits, insurance, shift premiums, training]
Material handler pay benchmark
| Region | Median | Offered in postings |
|---|---|---|
| All of Quebec | $22/h | — |
| Montérégie | $23.28/h | $22.50 (284) |
| Montréal | $21/h | $22.66 (134) |
| Laval | $21/h | $23.20 (29) |
| Lanaudière | $22.74/h | $20.96 (69) |
| Laurentides | $20.80/h | $21 (53) |
Median published by Job Bank (NOC 75101) and median offered in job postings (6 months, February to August 2026); in brackets, the number of hourly postings.
Eight interview questions
- Walk me through a full day at your last dock: what time, how many trucks, what was in them?
- How do you build a pallet of mixed carton sizes so it travels without collapsing?
- What is the heaviest load you have moved alone, and how did you go about it?
- You are unloading a trailer and the count does not match the packing slip. What do you do, in order?
- What does the red diamond pictogram on a container mean, and what do you do before touching it?
- Have you run an electric pallet jack or a lift truck? Who trained you, and on which machine?
- Which shifts can you work, and how do you get here at that hour?
- What made you leave your last warehouse?
Timelines and difficulties
Job Bank describes four settings for this occupation: transport and storage companies, moving companies, manufacturing and processing plants, and retail and wholesale warehouses. They chase the same people, often in the same Greater Montreal industrial parks. A candidate left without an answer for several days is already somewhere else. What stalls a mandate, in order: pay below the benchmark in the table above, an evening or night shift disclosed late in the process, and a site poorly served by transit at the hour the shift starts. Turnover in the first weeks almost always traces back to a physical load described as lighter than it is: a role that means handling bags or drums all day has to say so in the posting, or the person leaves before the month is out. Two decisions shorten the timeline. Write the exact shift and the real length of the day into the posting, instead of schedule to be discussed. And keep requirements separate from assets: asking for a forklift card on a role that does not need one removes a large share of the available candidates and adds nothing to the job.
We run this search for employers in Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, the North Shore and the South Shore. Our recruitment service: warehousing and distribution
If the placement does not hold six months, we replace it.
The replacement is on us. You do not pay twice for the same role.
A role to fill?
Fifteen minutes on the phone is enough to know whether we can deliver your mandate, and to tell you straight whether the salary range holds.
Talk to a recruiter