We’ve been hiring a lot of people recently (from which you can probably work out I don’t work in the public sector). When it comes to talent, I can almost (but not quite) sympathise with salespeople who argue that it’s much easier to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. The same is true for your staff.
However, as we’ve sifted through the thousand or so CVs we’ve received, and held first interviews with a few hundred, weeded out those with no substance by numeracy testing and shot the odd straggler or two, we’ve taken about 100 to final interview.
This involves meeting senior members of the supply chain team for structured interviews, holding informal one-to-ones with members of the business they will have to work with – and a session with a hired shrink to see if they’re all they make out to be.
The psychologists despatch about a third, the business representatives take a dislike to about a third, and we find about a third are somehow able to breach our defences and make it through to final interview stage anyway. The trouble is, it’s not always the same third in each case. So we cobble together a response to the rejects, hope they’re not too disappointed and hire the ones we liked the most anyway.
However, it is a fascinating process to meet so many bright, enthusiastic and aspiring candidates, as well as the rest. And it’s a great opportunity to do some people watching. You may remember how Desmond Morris, author of
The Naked Ape, described this activity as a sort of wildlife hobby: watching people as a sociological or anthropological observer, and reporting on them as a native species. Well, interviewing is the couch potato’s equivalent.
As I sat and watched, asking the odd testing question (defined as one I don’t have an answer to, such as “in your experience, how long does a monopoly last?”) I began to wonder – where do these über buyers come from? Are the crème de la crème of supply chain born or bred? Finding the answer would, of course, involve standard experiments carried out over the years to answer whether we are more products of nature or nurture.
Now the best answer ever given in the nature-versus-nurture debate was by a psychologist called Donald Hebb, who answered a journalist posing the question by saying: “Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle – its length or its width?” And in the absence of knowing any identical twins, I feel that line of enquiry might prove fruitless.
However, us purchasing people have many features that consistently mark us out. Beyond intelligence, good looks and great senses of humour, of course, we are known to be challenging (argumentative), questioning (sceptical), incisive (biased) and thoughtful (introverted). But as I studied the candidates who made it through to the final round, I spotted some common characteristics I hadn’t noticed before.
All had blue-chip backgrounds, first degrees in business studies, a Masters certificate and were qualified by their relevant home country institute of supply chain practice. As I compared the final 30 or so we planned to hire with the profiles of the existing team, I was able to answer the question that has eluded human evolutionary scientists. Are purchasing folks born or bred? Neither, we’re extruded.
Jim Frankley (not his real name) leads a purchasing function in a Fortune Global 500 company. He can be contacted at frankleyspeaking@cpoagenda.com
