Tag: supply chain

Supply Chain Risk Reduction

As you write your resume and prepare to interview, you will want show how you contributed to your past employers. Focusing on ways you have cut costs is a good start. Reducing lead times and improving quality are also good to emphasize. These are only starting points for supply chain professionals. Managing risk can be the most important aspect of a supply chain role.

Supply chain professionals face numerous challenges.  Sourcing provides some of the most complex obstacles a company will face.  Sourcing professionals need to find ways to source high quality products, materials and services at low prices with short lead times and no supply interruptions.  All of this must be done in a global economy constantly changing.  As a supply chain professional, how you maximize the performance of the supply chain is important, but equally important is minimizing risk.

As you write your resume and prepare to interview, you will want show how you contributed to your past employers.  Focusing on ways you have cut costs is a good start.  Reducing lead times and improving quality are also good to emphasize.  These are only starting points for supply chain professionals.  Managing risk can be the most important aspect of a supply chain role.

There are risks in every strategy and tactic a company adopts.  Some risks are small.  Supply chain risks are often huge.  For example, construction firms who utilized Chinese drywall over the last decade face tremendous liabilities as the material has been found contain chemicals that make houses unlivable.  Entire subdivisions are being abandoned.  There are numerous examples of companies harmed by poor quality materials from suppliers.  These risks are significant, but are only the tip of the iceberg.

When sourcing globally, companies face risks from every direction.  Currency fluctuations can turn the lowest cost supplier into the highest cost option.  Political disputes and striking workers can shut down companies and key transportation routes.  Energy price changes can drive up or down transportation costs.  Every year, natural disasters, from hurricanes to earthquakes, hit different parts of the world.  The more widely spread your supply chain, the more likely you will be affected.

Managing all of these risks is challenging.  Risk management was a key theme in one of the supply chain management sessions at the APICS Conference in Toronto I attended.  The speaker talked about ways to build in alternatives and options into a supply chain.  Developing secondary suppliers and alternate delivery strategies can be essential if your company wants to survive a major supply disruption.

As you write your resume, include examples of your contributions to managing supply chain risk.  Often this will take the form of developing additional suppliers.  Doubling your supplier base could be an expensive proposition, but it could also be much less costly than a major supply disruption.  Your experience with balancing these priorities and the solutions you delivered can help set you apart from other supply chain professionals.  Some people just show up.  They do the minimal to get by.  This usually involves shortcutting to the solution.  Showing how you took a more difficult path but set the company up for success no matter what happens is much more valuable.

Risk management is a good topic for a resume, but it may be more suitable for interviewing.  On a resume, you need to brief.  You may only have a couple lines to devote to each accomplishment.  Managing risk can be a complex process not easily condensed.  For this reason, your best risk management accomplishment might not help on your resume.  Once you get into an interview, though, you will have the opportunity explain what you did more fully and dive into complex accomplishments.

Supply Chain Career Trends

I added a number of supply chain career trends to the Palladian website this week. The job market has slowed, but some skills have held up better than others. The trends are taken from Indeed.com’s job trends, and track the number of job postings that include a specific keyword or phrase.

The job market has slowed, but some skills have held up better than others.  You can see trends in the job market using Indeed.com’s job trends and track the number of job postings that include a specific keyword or phrase.

One of the graphs I created lists major supply chain functions.  The graph shows distribution is much more common than the other terms, but logistics careers are holding up much better in this downturn. There are also graphs showing trends in job titles, terminology, technology, process improvement terms and professional certifications.

When you write your resume, include the keywords for your field.  Many companies use automated systems to do the first resume screen.  If you don’t have the keyword on your resume, it may never get read.

Behavioral Interview Questions for Sourcing Jobs

Sourcing manages the process a company uses to find and acquire materials with the supply chain function. A selection of behavioral interview questions targeted to activities and challenges within the sourcing field is provided.

Behavioral interviews focus on assessing the past performance of a job candidate.  The questions explore specific situations and activities the job seeker is likely to have experienced.  This makes behavioral interviewing a good tool in selecting sourcing professionals.

Sourcing manages the process a company uses to find and acquire materials within the supply chain function. The complexity of sourcing, especially from international suppliers, opens the door to a very wide range of interview questions. Below is a selection of behavioral interview questions that can help prepare for a supply chain interview:

  • Tell me about a time when you switched from a domestic to an international supplier for a major raw material.

  • Tell me about the greatest sourcing challenge you have faced in your career.

  • Tell me about the most difficult vendor relationship you have managed.

  • Tell me about a time when you made a poor decision in selecting vendors.

  • Tell me about a time when you assessed the risk of a supply interruption from a source of critical purchased materials.

  • Tell me about a time when you reduced the landed cost of a material by sourcing from a supplier with a higher unit cost.

  • Tell me about a time when a major supplier had significant quality issues with materials shipped to you.

  • Tell me about a time when a cultural issue between you and a vendor or potential vendor led to a collapse of the relationship.

  • Tell me about a time when you reduced raw material inventory levels without affecting customer service.

  • Tell me about a time when you utilized intermodal transportation for a key material.

  • Tell me about a time when you utilized a freight forwarder.

  • Tell me about a time when you utilized a 3PL.

  • Tell me about a time when you conducted an audit of a potential vendor overseas.

  • Tell me about a time when you had to overcome significant security concerns in an international market.

  • Tell me about a time when you replaced a preferred vendor due to changes in exchange rates.

  • Tell me about a time when miscommunication with a vendor led a conflict with the vendor.

  • Tell me about a time when you utilized a international procurement office to identify and manage vendors.

These questions cover a variety of topics related to supply chain and sourcing roles. With the thousands of potential interview questions, it is unlikely you will see many from this list in each interview. Despite this, preparing for these questions will help your interview performance.

Almost all companies will have challenges with some of the topics in the list. If you are prepared to discuss these challenges, few questions about your sourcing experience will be difficult.


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Resume Writing for Sourcing Careers

Resume writing for supply chain professionals, particularly in sourcing careers, requires addressing specific challenges and goals that are important to the target employer. By highlighting these topics in your resume, you can standout from your competition.

Resume writing for supply chain professionals, particularly in sourcing careers, requires addressing specific challenges and goals that are important to the target employer.  By highlighting these topics in your resume, you can standout from your competition.

Sourcing careers manage the identification of suppliers, the purchasing of materials, and the logistics of purchased materials and components. In our modern global economy, sourcing provides the foundation of many companies. More than any other function, sourcing can change the financial condition and competitiveness of a company quickly.

A number of companies have capitalized on their sourcing expertise to build powerful competitive advantages over their competition. Wal-mart and Dell are both known for the efficiency of their supply chain operations. Slight improvements to the sourcing function can dramatically affect the bottom line performance of a company.

The significance of sourcing roles to the success of an organization makes finding exceptional talent in the sourcing field a critical component of a company’s success. During the hiring process, most companies will have specific goals and expectations for the position. To be successful, a job seeker needs to demonstrate an ability to make an impact on these specific goals.

Many job seekers find it difficult to identify the goals of the company and the hiring manager. You may be able to research and determine the priorities, but often this won’t be possible. Instead, you need to address the major challenges that are most likely to be priorities based on the industry and company.

There are a number challenges that are likely to be important within the materials field, including:

  • Vendor Identification

  • Vendor Qualification

  • Quality Monitoring

  • Legal and Contract Concerns

  • Transportation

  • Customs

  • Scheduling

  • Inventory

  • Supply Interruptions

  • Issues With Political or Economic Instability

This is a partial list but can give you a starting point for marketing your background. On your resume, you should mention a variety to challenges and goals. It is important to include more than just a list of keywords. Provide details of your experience and accomplishments for each area of expertise. You may choose to emphasize a selection of skills, but try to mention most of them in your resume.

One way to highlight your sourcing skills it to start your resume with an executive summary.  The executive summary should include two or three of your most significant accomplishments. This will draw attention to your strongest skills and accomplishments, highlighting a few key elements of your experience. You can then work the remaining elements you want to mention into your resume under your work experience section.

If you show significant experience in the sourcing arena, and mention the key topics that a hiring manager is seeking, you are likely to get a phone screen. You do not need to guess the top priority of the hiring manager and emphasize this in your executive summary.  As long as you mention the topic and show significant sourcing expertise, you should generate sufficient interest to motivate the hiring manager to want to learn more.  If you do not focus on a topic critical to the hiring manager, the phone screen will usually explore this topic in detail.

The list of competencies above omits one very common topic. In fact, it is by far the most common topic of accomplishment, and a critical element you need to cover in your resume. The omitted element is your experience with reducing costs. Reducing raw material and transportation costs are one of the biggest opportunities most companies have. Cost reductions through better sourcing can offer the best ROI. An investment of time and some travel costs for a sourcing professional can often yield millions of dollars in savings.

There’s an important reason why I omitted cost reductions from the list above. The reduction of cost is the result of an activity. It is not the core activity. For example, picture a sourcing professional that includes this accomplishment on his resume: “reduced the purchasing costs of a key raw material by $3 million.” This is a good accomplishment but doesn’t say anything about how the individual achieved this result. Another candidate, with a similar background, lists the same accomplishment, but with additional key details: “Identified two dozen new potential vendors for a key raw material. Assessed and qualified three to be suppliers. Negotiated international contracts with two of these sources, resulting in $2 million in savings from lower purchase costs and $1 million in transportation savings.”

These could be the same accomplishment, but the second presentation is much more specific and makes a much stronger impact. If the hiring manager is focused on identifying new sources, assessing potential sources or reducing transportation costs, this accomplishment should peak their interest.

Show what you did with the results you achieved. When we assessed resumes in our resume benchmarking survey, we found nearly half of the resumes didn’t list any accomplishments. Many of the resumes that did list accomplishments, only included cost savings numbers – accomplishments similar to the first example provided above. If you give a detailed presentation of what you did, how you did it and what the results were, your resume will standout for the vast majority of your competition and your chances of landing an interview will be much higher.

Need specific resume writing advice tailored to Supply Chain Careers?  Get our book, Resume Writing for Manufacturing Careers.  It is packed with examples and advice of production management, scheduling, purchasing, logistics and transportation.