Experience brings insight, and with it the potential for paradigm shifts that can benefit your organization with the right hire. Please describe your style of leadership. Can the candidate not only manage, but inspire, the people under their guidance? Do they lead by example? Can they readily and confidently explain their approach? The answers to these questions will give you clear insight into how an applicant will lead their team members and your business to greater success.
Have you built a procurement team from scratch? If a position is brand new, or the job description has changed significantly and a new team must be established, this question is vital. Their answer will help you assess whether they are sufficiently self-motivated to handle such a task, and the autonomy that comes with it.
Crafting a team also requires strong strategic skills, and a practical and creative vision for how the team will function in pursuit of departmental and company-wide goals. The specific needs of a given position may not only require enhanced industry knowledge, but benefit from the skills gained via specialized certifications.
Job interview questions are a deceptively crucial part of building a winning procurement organization—and a stronger, more successful business.
Asking the right procurement interview questions, and investing in those who can answer them honestly, intelligently, and creatively, is the first step to crafting a team of procurement professionals with the skills, experience, and talent needed to build lasting value for your company.
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Clients and results. More Customers. Cristian Maradiaga. King Ocean. Book a Live Demo. Download a free copy of "Indirect Spend Guide", to learn:. Where the best opportunities for savings are in indirect spend. How to gain visibility and control of your indirect spend. How to report and analyze indirect spend for savings opportunities. How strategic sourcing, cost management, and cost avoidance strategies can be applied to indirect spend.
Download Free Copy. Effective Procurement Interview Questions. In this question, the interviewer wants to know how broad your experience is in solving procurement problems. Make sure you think hard and find the best problem you not your team members have solved, what was the scenario, what approach you have taken and what was the outcome. You can learn more here. There are a host of information available on CIPS regarding negotiation or you can find this forbes article useful to get you thinking outside the box!
As a candidate, you can answer this question by using an example of sustainable procurement practices. For example, you can read further on 10 primary principles of sustainable procurement. I have written the whole host of articles on Supplier Development , which you can use to answer this question:.
What is Supplier Development? A Technical Definition. In this procurement interview question, the hiring manager wants to learn about your ambition as a procurement professional or life in general.
For me, this is one of the trickier questions and there is no easy answer. However, I have found this blog which helps steer your thinking process in the right direction! In this Procurement Interview Question, we want to know how much you estimate your understanding of what supply chain risk management is for you.
There are plenty of useful research and materials available. I have written couple of blogs on this which you might find useful. This question covers the kind of commodities the procurement expert prefers and what level of understanding he possesses on past trends which can be applied to the here and now. A good expert always has a strategy or action plan in place to minimize risk on cost and zero shortage concerning the plan.
Procure to Pay is an important aspect of the procurement function. The challenge for each procurement professional is to set-up the most streamline process. Hopefully, you will find this article useful to gather your thoughts and answer these type of questions. This Procurement Interview Question aims to gauge the depth and breadth of information they have coming in.
A Buyer and Or Commodity Manager is only as right as the information they use to lead financial decisions they are tasked to make. If they just react to demand from a system database and supplier feedback, you are interviewing a Procurement coordinator not a Buyer.
This article briefly talks about Procurement Strategy Development which could be a good start to gather your thoughts. If you are a seasoned procurement professional it is very likely that you would know the answer of this question and may talk for hours, if there is no time limit!
Here, the interviewer is trying to understand your ethos and technical knowledge of how you would manager supplier relationships. This would give a theoretical framework you need to answer this question. You must prepare for this, as this is amongst most frequently asked Procurement Interview Questions.
For example, I have gone into battle with some commodity managers who have agreed a very high batch size of machined parts to get the best price, which throws my Just in Time, lean means supply chain design out of the window!
So, we need to find the right balance between cost reduction and best supply chain design to meet customer service targets and operational goals. You must read this blog! The processes or steps they go through is fundamental, and how they measure their success on the job.
Enjoying the job is one aspect not everyone finds easy. A real expert always loves the job yet would still have their likes and dislikes about procurement. Also, do not forget to ask questions which could ensure their integrity of dealings most importantly. They may also offer and option of including the customer on a mailing list.
In this case be sure that they have multiple contacts that are on the email distribution list so that everyone who should know will not be left out of communications loop. If the software company does not offer either one of this options, you might want to reconsider your decision. Is the proposed software scalable in design? Software that is scalable in design simply means that it can easily grow with your business, at minimal cost to you.
Factors include end user customizations, current database structure, and inputs and outputs like reports, and connectivity to your other database systems. Scalability is very important for small businesses, because they are dynamic in growth. No one wants to jump through hoops of testing, development, customizations, and training, to purchase software only to find out a year later that you have outgrown it and you need to replace it. With proper planning at the time of purchase only you can increase your chances for a successful software experience.
In an effort to meet your business needs how customizable is the system? Never forget that many times software companies will negotiate with you on customization. As a customer any software company worth your time should want to keep you happy. In some cases there may need to be some give and take by both parties. A good rule of thumb would be to always discuss your needs with movement directly. Gatekeepers tend to drag their feet at times. Purchasing software knowing that you will need to make major changes should be a sign that you really need to take a step back and look at all of your options including: in-house development, outsourcing, partnering with software developers to cut the price.
What are the typical hurdles that you can expect with your planned installation? No matter what generation e. If not, this should raise a red flag for you. The software company should be keeping track of this type of information, especially if they are constantly attempting to improve their products. You will find that they sometimes run into the same issues 2 or 3 times before they take notice and take action to investigate and resolve it before future installations.
What are the hours of support and how does their support department operate? Whether you are across town or on the other side of the world, if you need help and support is not available to you, the only option will be to take the system down for an unknown length of time and wait for help. Is there a list of items that have been requested to be included in the next update of the software? If possible also request a date of completion for the items on the list.
Before they say no, put them at ease by letting them know that your goal is find out what features they might be including so that you can plan ahead for your business.
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