Recently we published two guest posts from Charles Dominick of Next Level Purchasing on Assessing a Procurement Team’s Skills and Training a Procurement Team, but these were not his first. Nor his only good work. Five years ago we ran this post targetted not at procurement organizations, but procurement professionals who want a better job based on a great post on 5 [Common] Ways to Screw Up a Purchasing Job Interview that he published over on his Purchasing Blog.

Charles’ must read advice indicated that the following WILL screw up your interview:

• taking an interview late in the process

  as all future candidates are compared to the one once that candidate is identified

• not being prepared for the most common interview question

  which, succinctly, is tell me about yourself

• not distributing eye contact

  when being interviewed by multiple people

• saying anything negative

  as you will not be seen as the proactive team player they want to hire and

• using slang inappropriately

  as there is no guarantee that an interviewer is going to understand what you mean, and if you say you are hotter than a fox in a forest fire for the job, and the interviewer isn’t familiar with that phrase and a strong PETA advocate …

In addition, the following will also screw up the interview:

• not dressing appropriately

  even if the company has a very laid back atmosphere in the workplace, don’t show up in shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals (as they need to know that you can make a good impression in front of a supplier)

• over-stating your skills, experience, or knowledge

  as you will be interviewed by the best and brightest and they will find you out

• not knowing the market for the common Procurement categories

  if the job is in the electronics component division and you know nothing about the state of the semiconductor market, that’s not going to look good when they ask if you have any ideas to control costs in that market

• not knowing what the company does

  if they are an engineering company that primarily makes electronic components for personal entertainment and the automotive sector, but you only know them for their video game division, that’s not going to look good when they ask how you plan to reduce costs in the automotive division

• not knowing the competition

  and this is doubly damaging if you walk into the offices with the product or logo of direct competitor anywhere on your person.