The Sad State of Writing Skills in the Field of Procurement

Is it just me, or are too many of the professionals in procurement “almost good enough” but “not quite there” with their writing?

I’m looking for a senior buyer or subcontracts administrator to bring into our busy solution mining company. This position is responsible for frequent and ongoing engagement with plant personnel for capital equipment, construction projects and repair efforts involving outside contractors. The individual hired for this position must also articulate technical requirements flawlessly, write contracts for services precisely and otherwise protect the company from problems brought on by ambiguity in defining the work.

Over the last few months, Human Resources has brought in several dozen CVs for my review. Each one was accompanied by an introduction from the recruiter. Only one of the recruiters’ Emails or summaries was proof-written to remove typographical blunders or grammatical errors. All of the CVs included errors which the recruiters should have recognized and removed.

Recent Examples

Recruiter: “She has even ran her own export practice with China clients supplying mining equipment parts.” It should read “She has even run…”

Recruiter: “Mark is an experience procurement professional…” It should read “experienced.”

Recruiter: “Continuously review and expedite overdue and outstanding PO’s with Suppliers.” There is no apostrophe in the plural version of PO and “Suppliers” should not be capitalized because it describes a group of companies, not just one. It should read “…outstanding POs with suppliers.” No apostrophe. No capitalization.

Candidate: “Maintained material scheduling, updating delivery dates, procurement follow-up and expediting suppliers.” That statement would benefit from parallel writing such as the following: “Maintained material scheduling, updated delivery dates, performed follow-up and expedited suppliers.” All four are properly stated in past tense. (However, the candidate may have intended the statement to read “Maintained material scheduling by updating delivery dates, performing follow-up and expediting suppliers.” That would also be correct grammar.)

Candidate: “Building strong supplier relationships over many years fostered excellent communication between companies this lead to over 90% on time delivery schedules.” It should read “Building strong supplier relationships over many years fostered excellent communication between companies. This led to over 90% on time delivery schedules.”

Candidate: “Presents contact award recommendations to management…” She should have used the word “contract” in place of “contact.” Even after pointing this out, she failed to acknowledge the difference.

I understand that recruiters are incentivized by placing candidates into long-term positions. They are not paid to write. I get that. Still, the writing from recruiters should be better—especially considering what is at stake.

And for candidates? I cannot imagine submitting CVs to recruiters and hiring managers without a careful and thorough review for typographical errors, format problems or correctly-spelled but incorrectly-used words.

So, here's the thing: If a CV comes to me for a position that hinges a great deal on writing—and the CV itself contains obvious errors—you’re probably not going to make it to a telephone interview.

I realize that I am generalizing. I'm talking only about the candidates who have submitted CVs to me in the past 6 months—and each one's respective recruiter. I have to believe that experienced procurement professionals write at a higher skill level than this.