Is It Really Hard To Hire A Procurement Caliber?

Many people do not know what exactly Procurement people do?! Some connect it to marketing, sales or business development, while it could sound hard to explain to senior people that procurement is not about finding goods and services for the firms, I even find it also hard for fresh graduates to understand what procurement is exactly about. The challenge we have is that, it is very rare to find a college or academy that provides a four year study of procurement. Procurement is usually connected with other studies like Supply Chain, Logistics, Business or Finance. Considering these challenges, a question for HR would be; how can I select a qualified procurement candidate? Whether for junior or senior level. Is it the experience, the certificates or personal skills that would decide if the candidate is qualified or not?

To answer all these questions, first we need to understand what are the personal characteristics that describes a good procurement candidate? The first thing that could come to the mind is negotiation, persuasion, analytical skills however, I believe there are other overlooked skills that HR or Hiring Manager should consider while hiring a buyer such as, resistance to drive change and pushing forward…