Hardest Purchase Executive Interview Preparation Guide

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Is the candidate a change agent? How do they work with high levels of autonomy? Sometimes, it’s important that a candidate can create processes to drive the strategic vision of the organization

"I plan to be a PM for the next three to five years and then move to either a more specialized commodity role or a higher leadership role in the purchasing area. Ultimately, which role and when will be determined on where I can add the most value to the organization." This question is asked to determine if your career goals align with the career path that the company offers. It's important to think about how the position you are interviewing for will fit into your long term goals even as you apply for jobs

This is a very common question that is asked in almost every interview. I love this question because it gives you the opportunity to sell yourself. Discuss what makes you standout from the crowd and show them how you can help advance their company. Remember to be specific. This is where all the company research you have done comes into play. You should have an idea as to why the company is hiring or looking to hire someone for that position. What problem do they have that they are looking for people to help them solve? And once you can establish this, you are to show them how you can solve this problem for them.

This shines a light on what a candidate considers to be an accomplishment and what aspects of the job they feel are most important. Is it cost-savings? Is it the fact they connected their company to the right supplier?

Questions about delegating tasks and motivating staff are quite common in management job interviews. Your emphases should be on team building when answering this question. You can say something like “I always endeavor to show recognition to members of staff that meet goals and in my experience, I have seen that this keeps them motivated to take on more tasks. Where possible, I make the tasks delegation interdependent so that staff members can learn to work with each other and improve one another to get the best out of themselves.”

Some employers may ask you this to check your knowledge in purchase. It can be quite difficult for prospective employers to work out whether potential candidates are good, so this is your chance to shine.

When answering this question you could split up into following points:

☛ By alternative procurement
☛ Alternative supplier sourcing
☛ Vendor increases in different items
☛ Reducing production cost
☛ Procure best quality products
☛ Procure by ensuring product lifetime by supplier, which is most effective way of cost minimization.

"My priorities are the organization's priorities and can change based on this fact. I have to manage short-, mid- and long-term initiatives and prioritize my work according to them. Prioritizing is part of my daily planning process and I adjust as needed to serve the organization." The key to answering this questions is showing that you have daily time and prioritization period, that you use it, and that it is accommodating to changes.

Understand their goals and needs. Align the vision of the work to their goals. Inspire them through a speech or by example.

Does the candidate have leadership qualities? Can they articulate this?

The aim of this question is to ascertain the kind of leader you are. If you ever get to hold a management position in their firm, how would you handle issues of workload delegation or teach your subordinates?

I am of the opinion that a team should have specific individuals who are experts or most qualified to handle certain tasks, so as a leader, I would distribute the workload as evenly as possible to ensure that the best hands for different tasks are put where they are most effective. This will be done by ensuring that every member of the team has the skill and resource needed to complete his/her tasks.

Employers are asking this question to find out how much research you’ve done and whether you’ve got a full understanding of the company and the role. If you have got no clue about the company’s purchase and logistics department, then tell them you do your research and find out what sort of improvement is needed.

☛ 1. What have been the biggest achievements in your procurement career?

☛ 2. What do you like most and least about procurement?

☛ 3. Give an example of a time when you have had a difficult experience with a stakeholder and how you resolved it.

☛ 4. What tools and techniques would you use to implement a company-wide operational change driven by a procurement need to save money? And how would you get buy-in from stakeholders?

☛ 5. What has been the hardest lesson you have learnt in procurement?

☛ 6. Give an example when your perseverance resulted in a win for you and your organisation?

☛ 7. Who has had the biggest influence of your career? And how have they helped shape you?

☛ 8. What ongoing education are you undertaking?

☛ 9. What would you like to be doing in two or three years? And what is your career goal in 10 years’ time?

☛ 10. What attracted you to apply for this role and to work this company?

☛ 1. How will you go about determining this company’s purchasing patterns?

☛ 2. If we buy a customized product from a single source, how will you know if the price is fair?

☛ 3. All we have is raw purchasing transaction information. What can you do to make sense of it?

☛ 4. How do you define cost savings in a way that will be embraced by executive management?

☛ 5. What factors would you consider if you had to produce cost savings in a short time frame?

☛ 6. What process do you go through when conducting a sourcing initiative?

☛ 7. How do you decide if you need a contract for a purchase or not?

☛ 8. What are some appropriate remedies for a supplier’s failure to perform?

☛ 9. How can we reduce our risk through better contract language?

☛ 10. What tools do you use to keep track of progress on your projects?

Your answers should focus on how well you can review relevant facts, consider various options and select the most appropriate option. Discuss how you factor in variables such as constraints and resources.

Questions such as this one are asked with the aim of getting you to discuss some of your qualities, perhaps hidden that you wouldn’t have mentioned if you weren’t asked.

“Well, my colleagues will tell you they can count on me. They will tell you that I am a team player and someone they enjoy working with.”

This is a "core knowledge" question as purchasing from a single source has unique risks that need to be minimized. Answering this question is fairly easy if you have good amount of experience in this industry.
You can explain what method you use for determining if the price is fair or not and why you trust your method.

Employers are asking this question to check your problem solving skills to improve the present situation and to check how much you are updated with the present market challenges.

So, a good answer probably, that as companies are challenged with finding ways to meet ever-rising customer expectations at a manageable cost. To do so, businesses must identify which parts of their supply chain process are not competitive, understand which customer needs are not being met, establish improvement goals, and rapidly implement necessary improvements.

Discuss your method of assigning responsibility to the best candidates. How you communicate with employees to make them understand what is expected of them and how you make sure that the employees have the resources needed to carry out specific tasks. You should also chip in your follow-up procedures.

Leadership comes with responsibility so an effective way to approach this question would be “ everyone that works with me is an extension of my effectiveness as a manager and as such, I will have a heart-to-heart with the employee in question however, if nothing changes and it starts to affect the company bottom line, well, that’s my responsibility as well”

A possible follow-up to above, but more specific.

"At X company I was responsible for creating and managing a budget of $. I have been doing it on a regular basis as a part of my job and I am pretty good at projections." This question clarifies your ability to handle scale and scope. If your experience in on smaller budgets, include how your models have the ability to scale.

This is a good question for a lot of prospective employers to ask you at the start of the interview, as it allows them to weigh up your motivations. Obviously this question requires you to understand the job advert/spec inside and out, so have a good think about why you wanted to apply. There are lots of different reasons you could use; it could be that it was the company in particular or a specific aspect of the job description that you were interested in. That said; try not to use the salary as a reason, it just looks like you’re only in it for the money, which is never a good sign for a prospective employer.

The reason why you are asked this question is to hear what you consider difficult and how you approached the situation. Select a difficult work situation, which wasn’t caused by you and can be explained in a few sentences. You can then show yourself in a positive light by explaining how you handled the situation.

Whatever you say, your response must be measurable targets. Your interviewers are trying to size up what you truly bring to the table and it is better for you to offer quantifiable answers. A good response would be “Management basically has the responsibility to set goals and ensure that these goals are met. Building a strong team capable of withstanding any pressure, working with relevant data and ensuring that all deadlines are met. The company will always continue to grow under my supervision.”

This question is one of the most frequently asked questions. Where do you start? What do they really want to know? Are you to begin from elementary school or college? You have to be very careful on how you answer this question because your answer here sets the tone for the rest of the interview. This question is mostly asked as an icebreaker but if you did not prepare for it, it becomes a real problem.

The right approach to this is to discuss your key strengths and how they relate to the job. Talk about a few of your accomplishments. Talk about your current employer and then tell them how you see yourself fitting into a position at their company.