Your personal brand is a key element of your success in the procurement profession. It’s all about developing the unique way you work and leaving a lasting impact throughout your career steps.
It’s this brand that will become your unique selling point in your career progression, when you apply for new jobs and at some stage could potentially get you head hunted.
The majority of CPOs in the global procurement industry all have their own style, which is what got them where they are today, and developing that from an early stage in your career will help you reach the top.
Finding Your Style
Where to begin? It’s difficult at first to determine what your style will be. It can’t just be plucked from thin air, it needs to be true to you but also involve some positive development of skills and behaviours that you may not originally possess.
Start by considering the great influences around you. Who are the people you currently work with that do the job well, and have already or are on their way to reaching the top? Take time to watch the way they work, chat to them about what their own personal style is. Take positive influences from the things they are doing well and transfer this into your own work, and you will see a vast improvement already.
Be True To Yourself
In addition to looking at what others do well, you also need to consider what you already do yourself. What are your core beliefs and current behaviours? Pick out the positive ones to focus on taking forward into your new ‘brand’.
If some of the behaviours and beliefs of others clash with yours, don’t feel like you have to use them just because they are positive. Find your own balance, it has to feel natural and right to you. Don’t force other people’s ways on your own if it just doesn’t feel right, it’s your career and it has to be done your way.
Learn New Things
No matter what stage you are at in your career, you should always be learning new things. New knowledge, skills, ways of thinking. It’s never too late to learn!
There are two main ways you can learn in procurement; on the job and through career qualifications.
Learning on the job involves learning through the mistakes of yourself and others, and picking up new skills through observing and doing.
The sought after career qualifications for procurement professionals are CIPS. These courses will not only stand you in good stead by adding value to your CV, they will also help you to learn more about the procurement processes from the basics right to the top, so you can better understand the journey to the top and become equip for it.
Build A Relationship With The Company
It is important that you work within a company that matches your beliefs and compliments your style of working. If you fit in with the company’s core values, then career progression will come much more easily.
It is also best to put yourself forward and connect with the company. Don’t just sit in the office doing the basics of the job, get the stakeholders involved with the process and develop your style so that they will come to you for help. This kind of style makes you indispensible and more valued than ever in the business.
If you would like to learn more about progressing your procurement career with qualifications, Oxford College of Marketing’s Faculty of Procurement and Supply offer CIPS courses via intensive weekend, part time evening or distance learning online. You can complete the course in a way that suits your own personal learning style and fits in with even the most hectic of lifestyles.
