Why Strategic Procurement Searches Stall Before They Even Begin

Strategic hiring often begins in the middle of a transformation

Many strategic Procurement hires arise precisely when the Procurement function itself is changing how it operates. A new CPO is building Category Management, the company is centralising Procurement, creating regional or global roles, developing a centre of excellence, or integrating additional businesses following acquisitions.

A Strategic Buyer, Category Manager, Category Leader or Procurement Manager may therefore step into a role whose target scope is already defined, while some of the conditions required to perform it are still being built. Accountability within the team may be unclear, data may come from several sources, strategic roles may still carry a substantial operational workload, and Procurement may only be starting to build its influence over business decisions. The candidate profile should reflect this part of the job as well.

A Category Manager taking over a mature category with an established strategy and a defined way of working with the business needs a different type of experience from someone who is expected to build Category Management principles, bring structure to the data and increase Procurement involvement in decision-making at the same time. In our assignments, similar situations have arisen during CPO changes, Procurement centralisation, the creation of new teams and the development of Category Management. The more elements of the function were changing in parallel, the more important it became to establish, before launching the search, what the new hire would actually be expected to do in the first few months.

The same job title can describe a completely different job

A Category Manager may inherit a well-structured category, an existing strategy, reliable data and an established way of working with the business. Their responsibility will then include further development of the category strategy, supplier market, sources of value, risk management, SRM and delivery of agreed business objectives.

In an organisation that is only beginning to develop Category Management, the candidate may be responsible for developing and executing the category strategy, standardising the approach across business units, establishing supplier segmentation and management principles, increasing Procurement involvement earlier in the business process, and clarifying decision rights across global, regional and local levels.

The level of experience required depends on how much of this architecture the function has already built. In one organisation, strong Category Management capability and experience of running a mature category may be sufficient. In another, the candidate must also know how to build influence, design a category operating model in a complex organisation and clarify accountability between Procurement and the business.

A different challenge arises in companies developing Category Management while growing through acquisitions. Each acquired business brings its own suppliers, contracts, data, decision-making practices and stakeholders. A Category Leader working in this environment develops the category while simultaneously integrating additional business units. They must decide which elements of the approach should be standardised at group level and which remain justified locally.

The role profile should therefore be based on the actual operating model, not only on the job title and the target scope of responsibility.

The requirement set determines the size of the available candidate pool

Individual candidate requirements usually have a clear business rationale. Their combined effect, however, can significantly reduce the number of people who genuinely match the role.

A specific category, type of Procurement, international experience, industry background, experience in a global structure, an additional language, location, compensation level and required on-site presence can together create a very small candidate pool.

The number of people currently working as Category Managers, Strategic Buyers or Procurement Managers says little about the actual market for a particular role. Fit depends on the trajectory of a candidate's experience, their level of autonomy, the type of Procurement work they have performed, the scale of the categories or teams they have led, and the environment in which they have operated. A potential candidate may know the right category but have worked only locally. They may have global experience but primarily in implementing strategies designed by headquarters. Or they may have the right level of capability but no experience of leading change on a comparable scale.

Industry experience also needs to be justified precisely. In some roles, knowledge of a particular technology, product, regulation or supplier market is required from day one. In others, the nature of the candidate's previous work is more informative. Serial manufacturing, Project Procurement, collaboration with Engineering on NPI and management of a global category spanning multiple business units each require different experience.

A candidate from an adjacent sector may be better prepared for a particular role than someone from a direct competitor if they have already worked in a similar Procurement model and handled a comparable level of scale and decision complexity.

If the initial market analysis reveals a very small pool of suitable people, it is worth revisiting the profile and determining which requirements are directly driven by the work itself and which can be broadened without increasing the risk of a poor hire.

Some capabilities can be developed after hire; some experience cannot be replaced quickly

In one of our assignments, the client wanted to hire people who would ultimately be able to develop category strategies independently. The available budget did not allow the company to compete for the most experienced Category Managers. We therefore broadened the profile to include very strong Strategic Buyers and Category Managers with less experience who had the right sourcing, analytical and business foundations but had not yet independently led the full category strategy development process.

The selected candidate then worked on a real category strategy under the guidance of a Big Fish trainer. The client retained the requirements relating to sourcing, analysis and business partnering, while the missing capability was developed after the hire.

This approach has limits. The candidate must already have a strong capability base, and the missing experience must be realistically developable after the hire within a clearly defined scope and timeframe.

A short development programme cannot replace several years of experience in leading a complex transformation, managing a dispersed team, integrating companies following acquisitions, or building influence in a difficult organisational structure. In these areas, what matters is practice gained across multiple situations, stakeholder groups, levels of responsibility and decision consequences.

Separating these two groups of criteria makes it possible to broaden the search without lowering the requirements that genuinely determine success in the role.

Role scope and operating conditions need to be aligned

For strategic Procurement roles, the job description alone is usually not enough for a candidate to assess the opportunity. They need information about Procurement's position in the organisation, its level of influence, how decisions are made, the team structure, relationships with the business and what will be expected during the first months in the role.

A Category Manager interested in building strategies will want to know whether they will have access to the required data and stakeholders. A Procurement Manager taking over a team will want to understand how much time employees spend on operational work, what capabilities the team already has and what scale of change the CPO expects. A candidate considering a global role will ask where decisions are made and how headquarters and local business units work together.

Critical information about the function, team, scope of responsibility and planned changes should therefore be shared at the beginning of the process. Candidates should not discover only after several meetings that Procurement has limited influence over decisions, the team is heavily burdened with operational work, or part of the operating model still needs to be built.

A clear account of the difficulties improves decision quality on both sides. A candidate who is motivated by building a function may deliberately choose an organisation with incomplete data, developing Category Management and a substantial stakeholder agenda. Someone who expects an established operating model can identify the mismatch before entering a process that lasts several weeks.

In a narrow candidate market, process efficiency matters

Candidates who are actively looking for a new role are usually involved in several recruitment processes at the same time. Someone approached through direct search may also begin looking more broadly after the first compelling conversation. Over time, alternative offers, counteroffers from the current employer and internal promotion opportunities can emerge.

For senior Procurement roles, several assessment stages may be justified if each one provides new information. Repetitive interviews, long gaps between stages and adding further decision-makers extend the process without improving decision quality. Before interviews begin, the organisation should therefore agree who will take part in the assessment, the purpose of each meeting, who makes the final decision and how long it needs to move from first contact to an offer.

If an organisation uses several sourcing channels, candidate communication also needs to be consistent. Contacting the same person through several agencies, an internal recruiter and the hiring manager does not expand the candidate market. Conflicting information about role scope, compensation or the recruitment process does, however, reduce the credibility of the search.

Five decisions to make before launching the search

Before launching a strategic recruitment process, five issues should be resolved.

If these issues are still open when the search begins, the organisation usually returns to them later: after several weeks without suitable candidates, after candidates decline because of compensation or location, or when people who fit the profile assess the actual scope of responsibility differently from the company. Correcting the profile at that stage means returning to part of the market that has already been analysed and extends the overall assignment.

A difficult search should be identified before it starts

The difficulty of a strategic recruitment assignment can often be identified before the search begins. It is shaped by the role scope, the way the Procurement function operates, the level of capability required, location, compensation and working model. Their combination determines the size of the candidate pool that meets the full profile.

Big Fish recruits exclusively in Procurement. In strategic and leadership assignments, we first analyse the function, the scale of the planned change and the responsibility the new hire will assume. On that basis, we define the candidate profile and assess how broad the market is for people who meet the most important requirements.

Preparation for a strategic recruitment process can be included within a Big Fish assignment or delivered as a separate stage before the search. It covers clarification of the role, candidate requirements and the conditions that affect the availability of suitable people.

Planning a strategic Procurement hire?

Big Fish can support the process before the search begins: clarify the role, distinguish critical requirements from criteria that can be broadened, and assess the available candidate market. This preparation can be included in an Executive Search assignment or delivered as a separate stage before launch.

Learn more about Big Fish Procurement Recruitment