Check our FAIQ – Frequently Asked Interview Questions.   

A selection of our most common interview questions for the procurement professionals is listed below. We hope that this list will help you  to prepare better for the interview.  

Of course the questions depend on the competences that are crucial to our customers, the role itself (whether it is more tactical or strategic ) and a some other factors that are a bit more complex.

Experience  level: (senior/ strategic) buyer, category leader 

1. Tell me about the company that you currently work for. Please provide industry insights such as: key players on the market, your company core competence and competitive advantage. 
2. What kind of commodities/ categories have you managed?
3. Walk me through any category that you managed– please provide the most important data about that category?
4. What kind of data do you need to access supplier?
5. Tell about your experience in defining KPI’s for suppliers
6. What is your experience in conducting supplier’s performance reviews.
7. What has been the most interesting procurement project and why? Please describe your role.
8. How do you measure savings?
9. What was the scope (local, international, global)?
10. Tell about the procurement department structure and to whom do you report?
11. What were your main responsibilities?
12. What were your KPI’s?/ How did you achieved them?
13. Describe your company’s procurement strategy. What do you think about it – what would you change?
14. Describe your supply base.
15. What are the main challenges with suppliers cooperation in your category?
16. What are the key risks concerning your supply base? What do you do to mitigate them? 
17. What was/is the contractual coverage / how many suppliers under contracts?
18. What was your APV* (annual purchase value)? What % of your APV is directly managed by your external client (direct materials procurement professionals)
19. Which commodities have/had the biggest % in the APV?
20. Provide a cost breakdown of the chosen commodity?
21. Provide an example of identification of  cost reduction opportunities at suppliers?
22. Describe your experience in suppliers development and continuous improvement (provide an example).
23. Provide an example of the most difficult negotiations you conducted – what was the main challenge? What would you do differently?
24. What commercial, logistic, quality aspects (except price) have you negotiated?
25. Tell me about your experience  in suppliers base reduction?
26. Please state 3 most spectacular  successes that you made over your career.
27. What are the main challenges when it comes to the cooperation with the internal stakeholders? How do you facilitate that cooperation?
28. What comprises strategic purchasing from operative purchasing? What you see as strategic purchasing duties?
29. What risks can appear in sourcing (“direct/ indirect commodities”) and what kind of tools and procedures can be used to minimize this risks?
30. Please describe in the chronological order, strategic sourcing process together with its key milestones.

Experience level: manager, leader (team management ) 

1. What was the highest number of people under your management ?
2. What was the main challenge you faced in managing your team?
3. How did you developed your team members?
4. How do you motivate your team?
5. How do you make sure that your team delivers the results that are expected?
6. Did you ever had to fire anyone (what was the reason, how did you do that)?
7. How many people did you hired? What are the key skills you are looking at when hiring team members?
8. What would your employees tell about you?
9. Tell about any conflict in your team that you needed to manage.
10. Tell about any conflict with your internal stakeholder that you needed to manage.
11. Do you have any experience in managing your team remotely? What are the main difficulties in remote management?
12. Provide one example when you inspired your team to over perform the results.
13. Tell about the situation when you needed to sell your ideas convince your internal stakeholders.
14. Tell about a situation when you need to make a decision having limited data.
15. What are your development areas stated in the last performance appraisal?

Please note that this questions are not suitable for operational buyers level.

Are there any other interesting questions that you would ask?   

Author: Agnieszka Piątkowska

Partner Ready to Jump/ Partner Big Fish Polska   

www.readytojump.pl   

www.e-bigfish.com.pl