How to find a job in procurement?

1. Job hunting strategy
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PEOPLE IN procurement

2. Job offers generation
1.Your network/ personal contacts/ social network
2.Direct application to target companies -
reaching potential employers directly
3.Headhunters
4.Online job ads
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3. Your network
1. Organize your network (LinkedIn/ business
contacts, professional associations, school/
university alumni's, friends & family)
2. Call them – inform about your willingness to
change job
3. Prepare cover mail
4. Send your master CV together with cover mail
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4. Cover mail example /
network
Hello xx,
Following our conversation please find attached my CV.
In brief about my profile:
• Sourcing Manager with 12 + years of experience in the EMEA region. Creator, communicator and
executor of a Regional Sourcing Strategy, member of a Global Sourcing Team
• Cross- cultural expert, member of the International team with mates and key stakeholders from:
Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Ireland, UK, US and Poland
• Skilled leader with over 8 years of team management practice (performance appraisals and
career development discussions)
• Cross functional project manager, who established good relationship with regional and global
stakeholders while driving company competitive advantage
• Global multicultural negotiator (e.g. from Ukraine to Israel) with sales practice (key account
management)
I’m looking for a positions of : Sourcing Manager, Procurement Manager in Warsaw
In case you would hear about this type of vacancy in your network, please let me know.
Regards Anna
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5. Direct application
1. Define companies/ organizations that you wish to work for (type of
business, location, etc.) - use CAVAC™ Model
2. Gather information about their strategy and activities (check their
www, follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, check business
conferences they attend)
3. Try to get additional insights via informal interview
4. Define your contact person (ex. Head of HR, CPO, Member of the
Board)
5. Prepare a cover mail/ cover letter/ pain letter
6. Send your CV + cover letter + project portfolio
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6. Direct application how to create a list
of target companies
1. Create a Wish List of target companies where you have always wanted to work.
Think about what characteristics and accolades those target companies have that inspire you to want to work for them.
When writing down those traits, use those ideas to spring board your thinking to come up with other target companies
that seem to embody those same traits and philosophies.
2. Apply The CAVAC™ Model *to build your Target Company List.
The CAVAC™ Model is a methodical, hub-and-spoke thought process that helps the job seeker create a stream of
new ideas pertaining to potential companies where they may find their next position. The C’s are the company’s clients
and competitors. The V is vendors. And the A’s are associations and affiliate companies that complement the target
company’s business.
3. Cultivate leads from Industry Conference, Convention, and Trade Show literature.
If you are unable to attend, review the website/conference literature: Look the speaker list: Who do they work for?
Review the sponsor list: who is committing advertising dollars to this conference? These are companies, by the nature
of funding speaker travel and sponsorships, typically will have the philosophy and long strategic view to growth and
leadership that you may be looking for and could be create candidates for your target list.
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*http://chameleonresumes.com/2013/08/12/build-your-target-company-list-
methodically/?utm_source=SLC+LinkedIn&utm_medium=BlogPost&utm_campaign=build-your-target-company-list-methodically

7. Direct applicationCAVAC™ Model
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Employer or
target
company
Competitors
Associations
Vendors
Affiliates
Clients

8. Direct application how to create a list
of target companies
4. Search for blogs in your industry to build your target company list.
When identifying for blogs in the industry, there are a few ways you can use this information. If it is a corporate blog,
then that company can become a target list candidate. You can make note of the employer of the blogger, if they are
writing from an independent opinion. Lastly, you can look for upcoming or expanding companies discussed in the
content of the articles to add to your list.
5. Research the investments of Private Equity, Venture Capital and Angel Investor companies.
If you would like to work for a newly formed firm, a firm in its high growth stages or a firm fueled by private equity
or venture capital funds you can research for VC. In Poland for ex. in terms of number of investments, the most active
investors include Inovo VC, MCI Internet Ventures and Experior with significantly higher activity than others (10, 5 and 4
investments respectively). Other VCs with more than one investment were: RTA Ventures, Piton, Capital, Protos
VC and Giza Polish Ventures. Out of the total investments, 72% were lead by Polish VCs. Only 28% of the capital has
been provided by foreign investors. Out of the 72%, 36% has been delivered by state backed Polish funds, 26% of
investments were made by private VC funds and 10% by Polish angel investors (data from 2016).
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9. Direct application how to create a list
of target companies
6. Look at your day-to-day activities. What companies do you interact with each day?
Go with what you know and with which you are familiar. Every company that you encounter in your daily life could
be a possible lead, depending on what you do.
7. Learn about local companies in your area first hand, and not just thought online research.
Attend and consider joining your area’s local Business Association Partnerships, Chambers of Commerce, and other
business-embracing organization in your city and county. The employers of the area will attend these meetings and you
can meet your area’s local employment players in person.
8. Go beyond the alumni database to capture the influence and leverage the potential offered by your college
alumni network.
Subscribe to the alumni magazine, attend the alumni network meetings. Consider volunteering for the membership
committee for your local alumni chapter. Having access to the local chapter members and their employers can spark
ideas of where you can look for your next opportunity.
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10. Direct application how to create a list
of target companies
9. Look at the advertisers in the magazine and in any other online or physical industry publication.
For any industry, alumni, mainstream or professional publication (online or print), make note of the advertisers in
that publication.
10. Search for current and previous employees of target companies in your CAVAC™ network and review the
employees’ profiles on LinkedIn.
Where did they work previously? What is going on with that previous employer now? Ask yourself if those
companies are worthy to be on your Target List. To take an extra step with this information, if you are within three
degrees of this target company’s former employee, consider asking for an introduction to determine if you can
obtain any information about the hiring process.
11. Use job boards as information portals, and not just job portals.
If you discover a great company through an online job posting, but it is not the right job for you, use it as evidence that
the company is hiring. Don’t wait for the job opening to become available—use what is there to craft your own proposal.
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11. Direct application how to create a list
of target companies
12. Create time to review business news sites, such as CNBC, Marketwatch, Wall Street Journal, Financial
Times, Business Insider, Puls Biznesu etc.
Research the companies of interest in the articles (and the advertisements!) to determine which of the new companies
you discover should be on your target list.
13. Get extra value from your professional development and continuing education coursework.
Consider to attend professional trainings, obtain post graduate, MBA, management degrees.
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12. Informal interview
Informal interview could be a meeting/ conf call/ Zoom with someone who works for an industry of
your interest, who holds the position of your interest, who work/ worked in the organization of your
interest. It could be also a informal meeting with HR of the company you wish to work. In that case
informal interview is not typically planned around a specific job opening or opportunity, rather it is a
chance for a jobseekers to learn about an industry, its corporate culture and to get advice on their
career from someone who has walked a similar professional path to help them decide if it might be the
right fit.
It is a possibility to:
- gather inside information about the organization (challenges, culture & values, development
possibilities, skills they are looking for, changes they are facing etc.)
- gather information about their hiring process and people responsible for that
- gather information about current or future job openings
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13. Informal interview examples of
questions
1. What kinds of problems does the organization deal with?
2. Do you know what the most important leadership traits look like for that organization?
3. What do you like most about working in this industry? What do you dislike most?
4. Why did you decide to work for this company?
5. What do you like most about this company?
6. How does your company differ from its competitors?
7. Are you optimistic about the company’s future and your future with the company?
8. What does the company do to contribute to its employees’ professional development?
9. What sorts of changes are occurring in your occupation?
10. How would you describe the working atmosphere and the people with whom you work?
11. What can you tell me about the corporate culture?
12. If your job progresses as you like, what would be the next step in your career?
13. From your perspective, what are the problems you see working in this field?
14. If you had to break it up into percentages, how do you spend your day?
15. How does the time use vary? Are there busy and slow times or is the workflow fairly constant?
16. What current issues and trends in the field should I know about/be aware of?
17. What is the company’s relationship with its customers?
18. Has the company made any recent changes to improve its business practices and profitability?
19. How would you describe the atmosphere at the company? Is it fairly formal or more laid-back and informal?
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14. Informal interview examples of
questions
20. Do people function fairly autonomously, or do they require a lot of supervision and direction?
21. Is the company’s management style top-down, or do front-line employees share in decision-making?
22. What work-related values are most highly esteemed in this company (security, high income, variety,
independence)?
23. What kind of training program does the company offer? Is it highly structured or more informal?
24. Does the company encourage and/or pay for employees to pursue graduate degrees? Is there a tuition
reimbursement program?
25. How does the company evaluate your job performance?
26. How does the company recognize outstanding accomplishments of its employees?
27. What does the company reward?
28. What is the typical job-interview process at the company? How many interviews do candidates generally go through
before being offered a position?
29. What does the company do to foster innovation and creativity?
30. In what areas do you perceive there to be gaps in personnel in this company? If the company had unlimited
resources for creating new positions, in what areas should those positions be created?
31. In what areas do you see the company expanding? Do you foresee the opening of new markets or greater
globalization? Do you predict development of new products and/or services? Building of new facilities?
32. How can employees prepare for any planned changes at the company?
33. What obstacles do you see getting in the way of the company’s profitability or growth?
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15. On line job ads
Job ads integrator:
https://pl.indeed.com (PL)
https://pl.jooble.org (PL)
www.indeed.com
www.adzuna.pl (PL)
Most common job boards in Poland:
www.pracuj.pl
www.praca.pl
www.infopraca.pl
https://praca.money.pl
www.goldenline.pl
https://pl.jobrapido.com/
www.careerjet.pl
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16. On line job ads
Most common in Europe/ US
https://pl.linkedin.com/jobs
http://www.execcrossing.com
https://jobs.theguardian.com/jobs/senior-executive/europe/
https://eu.experteer.com/jobs
https://jobs.telegraph.co.uk/jobs
https://www.ceo-worldwide.com/job-offers.php
http://jobs.economist.com/jobs/
http://www.careerbuilder.com
https://www.reed.co.uk/
www.salary.com/research/jobs
www.theladders.com/jobs/search-jobs
http://www.simplyhired.com/
https://www.monster.com/
https://www.glassdoor.com/
https://careers.google.com/jobs
http://www.linkup.com/
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17. Big Fish A-R-T Services
We develop Procurement & Supplier Management Teams
We help organizations across sectors and sizes
to build and develop
High performance teams in supplier management.
Our skills development concept
The ART® of Procurement & Supplier Management
delivers continuous improvement via an integrated
approach which considers both technical and organizational skills.
Assessment
Recruitment
Training

18. 18
To build the supplier
management skills and
teams that will ensure
achievement of
expected business
results at any time and
in any context.
The Purpose of Big Fish
• We build, transform and develop state of the art
Procurement teams and capabilities in line with
short and mid term business objectives of our
clients.
• We help achieve defined business results via
focusing on the ability of Procurement
organizations by using an integrated People
Development approach that addresses the needs
of all layers in the organization.
• We are recognized for our expertise in both
Procurement and People Development, our
constant search for innovative and customized
solutions for our clients, the practical impact of our
contributions, and the truly global approach of our
firm.

19. An international team of
roughly 50 experts
A stable company, owned by
its associates
More than 80 global clients
in all industrial sectors
Serving companies from 20 million small
businesses to the largest multi national
corporation
80% of our missions are with existing clients
or based on references from existing clients
A community of more than 30,000 people
Big Fish International
A Global Network to Create Value