How to find interim procurement staff

Interim procurement staff can be essential to businesses undergoing a restructure or during periods of excess and challenging work. They are expected to deliver results immediately, and are not typically offered a honeymoon or “settling in” period, as they will only be at a business for a short amount of time.

Companies look for experienced interim managers with niche skills who can step into the procurement department and quickly make a real difference. Interim staff are often required to take the lead or instigate new initiatives, so recruiters need to look for certain types of candidates who will be confident enough to take control.

Follow these tips to help make sure you find only the best, highly skilled candidates for interim roles in the procurement industry.

Check out their online presence

A great way to get a strong feel for a candidate is to research their online presence. At an interim manager level, any candidates should have a strong LinkedIn page, which details their relevant skills, experiences and endorsements. In fact, a good LinkedIn page should tell you everything you need to know about inviting them for an interview.

Social media profiles can also be a great indication of a candidate's communication skills and how they interact with other people, and can help you decipher if a person is a correct fit for your business.

Do they have strong references?

An interim manager in the procurement industry needs to have a proven track record of strong results. Any CV you look at should have the details of relevant and influential references within the industry, as you want your candidate to have made a positive impact on all they have previously worked with.

Check out the LinkedIn profiles of your candidate’s references and work out when they will have worked together and on what projects. This should give you a good indication if your candidate can deliver what you are looking for.

Do they have proof that they can deliver immediate results?

A candidate’s CV may be full of amazing sounding results, but what you really need to look for is proof. Any CV with statistics helps to make any claims of successes more tangible, and you will be able to assess if these results can be applied to the task the interim manager is being hired for.

If a candidate is asked for an interview, ask if they can highlight a time their experience and input changed a situation for the better and see if they can also offer statistics to further support this.

Offer them a scenario they might find themselves facing in the procurement industry and see how they might strive to improve it. From these answers, you should be able to work out if they can tackle the changes they will face in the role you are hiring them for.

How is their industry knowledge?

A strong interim manager in procurement will have a an array of relevant contacts and a wide knowledge of the industry. Make sure your candidate is able to demonstrate their knowledge, of both your company and the industry as a whole by asking them specific questions based on situations they would have dealt with in a supply chain role.

An interim procurement manager is hired on a short-term basis so companies can use their expertise to improve both systems and processors. They often don’t come cheap, so it’s worth always making sure each candidate you interview is highly skilled and relevant to the role, with the kind of relationships that you can utilise.

At Portfolio Procurement, we are experts in matching skilled candidates with procurement vacancies in companies of all sizes – Contact us on 020 7650 3191 to speak to a member of our recruitment team.

For a face-to-face meeting give us a call and arrange a meeting at our Central London offices close to Liverpool Street.