hi, well its been almost two years on the hunt for a job in the field of purchasing and not a single interview. This despite, sending resume’s and cover letters through email, fax etc. If you are looking to start out new or have just started in procurement field, think very hard about the future in this field.
If you look at the various newspapers and internet, for every one vacancy in purchasing you will easily find maybe 500-1000 vacancies in sales. Keeping in mind that all along those in sales will be earning more than you since companies value sales more and hence sale staff includes salaries plus commission mostly. On a more individual level every business man thinks he knows everything there is about procurement and can make do with a clerk for the paperwork which further reduces the vacancies.
If you still do get into procurement, a good subdivision would be to get in category management or procurement for retailers where there is scope for jobs and improvement. If you are in the middle east, being bilingual (Arabic/English) is a common criteria and experience of having worked previously elsewhere with a retailer or else have friend in the HR dept.
One interesting article, I came across while writing this is how men and women go about procurement is here. Please read
