How to hire a procurement consultant

How to hire a procurement consultant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step procurement consultant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a procurement consultant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new procurement consultant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a procurement consultant do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a procurement consultant, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A procurement consultant's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, procurement consultants from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   The following list breaks down different types of procurement consultants and their corresponding salaries.

   Type of Procurement Consultant	Description	Hourly rate
   Procurement Consultant	Purchasing managers plan, direct, and coordinate the buying of materials, products, or services for wholesalers, retailers, or organizations. They oversee the work of procurement-related occupations including buyers and purchasing agents.	$30-48
   Director Of Purchasing	A director of purchasing oversees the procedures related to buying resources and supplies, directing operations from planning to execution while adhering to standards and company policies. They primarily perform research and assessments to understand project needs in terms of price, quality, and delivery time... Show more	$32-79
   Material Manager	A material manager is responsible for monitoring inventories and stock supplies, ensuring the adequacy of materials needed for manufacturing or other operations, depending on the organization's industry. Material managers meet with suppliers and third-party vendors, negotiating contracts that would fit the budget goals of the company without compromising quality... Show more	$34-60

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Strategic Sourcing
   • Procure-To-Pay
   • HR
   • Cost Savings
   • Business Process
   • Data Analysis
   • MM
   • Supplier Management
   • ERP
   • Ariba
   • Professional Services
   • MRP
   • Internal Stakeholders
   • SRM

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage RFI, RFQ and RTP process for all procurement, marketing and advertisement requirements.
   • Manage several SDLC phases for enterprise systems used by state government agencies to perform environmental and environmental management.
   • Train internal customers for creating purchase orders in Ariba.
   • Process NCQA/HEDIS audit contract requests through Ariba and DocuSign procurement systems.
   • Train and ongoing support of the VMI solution during and after go-live.
   • Work with the client to define procure-to-pay process that leverage the best practices of each business line.

   More procurement consultant duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your procurement consultant job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A procurement consultant can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, procurement consultants' average salary in kansas is 38% less than in california.
   • Seniority. Entry-level procurement consultants 37% less than senior-level procurement consultants.
   • Certifications. A procurement consultant with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a procurement consultant's salary.

   Average procurement consultant salary

   $81,254yearly

   $39.06 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level procurement consultant salary

   $64,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 19, 2025

   Average procurement consultant salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$112,251	$54
   2	Washington	$98,797	$48
   3	New York	$93,801	$45
   4	Massachusetts	$93,069	$45
   5	Michigan	$92,289	$44
   6	Connecticut	$89,553	$43
   7	Oregon	$86,250	$41
   8	District of Columbia	$84,944	$41
   9	Virginia	$84,767	$41
   10	North Carolina	$82,623	$40
   11	Texas	$81,455	$39
   12	Pennsylvania	$80,719	$39
   13	Colorado	$79,570	$38
   14	Indiana	$78,556	$38
   15	Ohio	$77,859	$37
   16	Georgia	$75,512	$36
   17	Illinois	$73,362	$35
   18	Missouri	$73,286	$35
   19	Wisconsin	$72,558	$35
   20	Arizona	$72,014	$35

   Average procurement consultant salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	McKinsey & Company Inc	$125,479	$60.33	4
   2	Epicor	$104,213	$50.10
   3	Kimberly-Clark	$91,392	$43.94	1
   4	AT&T	$91,028	$43.76	23
   5	Infinity Consulting Solutions	$89,041	$42.81
   6	Randstad North America, Inc.	$87,016	$41.83
   7	IBM	$86,965	$41.81	81
   8	Huron Consulting Group	$86,963	$41.81	29
   9	Robert Half	$86,276	$41.48	34
   10	Deloitte	$85,483	$41.10	2,578
   11	Accenture	$85,366	$41.04	843
   12	Keste	$84,492	$40.62
   13	Siemens	$84,416	$40.58	13
   14	PDS Tech	$83,674	$40.23	1
   15	HBR Consulting	$83,628	$40.21
   16	Corcentric	$82,578	$39.70
   17	Carrier	$82,354	$39.59	5
   18	International Rescue Committee	$80,734	$38.81
   19	Relativity	$80,277	$38.59	24
   20	UnitedHealth Group	$70,201	$33.75	29

4. Writing a procurement consultant job description

   A job description for a procurement consultant role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a procurement consultant job description:

   Procurement consultant job description example

   + Procure material, equipment, supplies, services, and commodity products of low to medium value and medium to high volume
   + Evaluate cost and analyze supplier bids to attain best overall value
   
   + Negotiate price, delivery and quality of products/services and determine supplier selections
   
   + Track all Purchase Orders through reports, work matched exceptions, open commitments, receiving discrepancies, returns, supplier discrepancies, and problem reports/supplier corrective action responses. Interface with receiving and accounting to resolve issues
   
   + Manage supplier relationship through the acquisition process
   
   + Confer with suppliers to determine factors that affect competitive total cost of ownership consistent with quality, reliability, and ability to meet required schedules. Evaluate root cause and corrective action with suppliers on late delivery performance
   
   + Interpret FAR/DFAR/ITAR laws, rules and regulations regarding import/export control certifications and licenses
   
   Qualifications:
   
   + Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics Management, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Operations Management, General Business Management, Business Administration or related field
   
   + GPA of 3.0 or greater
   
   Preferred Skills:
   
   + Experience in Supply Chain principles and concepts, spend management tools, purchasing insight into buying and selling principles, negotiations, awareness of different contract types, financial and quantitative analytical skills, commodity management, supplier and performance measurement tools, and exposure to sourcing process, and Lean Six Sigma
   
   #LI-Remote
   
   L3Harris Technologies is proud to be an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. L3Harris is committed to treating all employees and applicants for employment with respect and dignity and maintaining a workplace that is free from unlawful discrimination. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, citizenship status, characteristic or membership in any other group protected by federal, state or local laws. L3Harris maintains a drug-free workplace and performs pre-employment substance abuse testing and background checks, where permitted by law.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right procurement consultant for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with procurement consultants they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit procurement consultants who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your procurement consultant job on Zippia to find and recruit procurement consultant candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting procurement consultants requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new procurement consultant

   Once you have selected a candidate for the procurement consultant position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   It's also important to follow up with applicants who do not get the job with an email letting them know that the position is filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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