Career as Purchaser

[ky0kun]

Just wondering if anyone here has the profession of a Purchaser.
I was in college for Computer Networking, and decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do as a career. I started reading about "A Career as a Purchaser". Just wondering, where do you get your certificate/diploma, what else do you need? What the salary like? Who would hire you once you have completed the program? Etc. Just any info on it really. What do you do in your field? What room is there for "promotions".

[faken]

http://www.pmac.ca/

Take a look through there.

[Octavius]

Just wondering if anyone here has the profession of a Purchaser.
I was in college for Computer Networking, and decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do as a career. I started reading about "A Career as a Purchaser". Just wondering, where do you get your certificate/diploma, what else do you need? What the salary like? Who would hire you once you have completed the program? Etc. Just any info on it really. What do you do in your field? What room is there for "promotions".

I worked as an assistant in the Purchasing Department at Carleton U for like 6 months for a 1/2 credit.

All in all, it was a fairly interesting job. You get paid pretty decent, most of it is drafting up RFP's, RFQ's RFI's, Legal Tenders and ACAN (Advanced Contract Award Notices) and throwing them up online. Then afterwards you communicate with the bidders, develop a short-list, award the contract and provide a de-briefing for the other parties.

Lots of secrecy involved in the bids...gotta be really careful what you talk about outside of work and with the other parties. My boss received threats as well as having losers claim that he got "kickbacks" for awarding the contract to a particular party over theirs (which was untrue). The entire job is to ensure you protect your employer as much as possible - you can't leave a single loophole open because it could end up costing you thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

I did enjoy it though. If I failed to get into the federal government and if my hopes of getting into a law school in Canada were crushed then I'd probably pursue this path as a backup. I did a degree in Business Law at Carleton so this job is pretty much right up my alley.

[dark169]

I used to do some purchasing at a wholesaler and it was interesting, I now deal with it from a differnt end as I work for a vendor of large engineered equipment and purchasers (procurement managers, expediters) are part of the mix.

Its a pretty interesting gig within the EPC world you get to piss of engineers and boss around vendors, all while dropping your dollars to pick up nickels...

deals alot with the project management from the bid process right through to shipment which on big POs could be years. In the old days you could expect lots of perks such as hockey tickets, meals and golf, but these days accepting a pen from a vendor can be frowned upon

[masterhapposai]

I looked into it and found Ryerson actually has many successful purchaser graduates who get employed locally. They make really good $ for such a simple program

I was later discouraged after meeting some of the purchasers and seeing how they acted like maniac homeless men. Just imagine the low life managers at Futureshop, but worse. This was probably because as Octavius said, it can become a hustler's world, lots of lying & backstabbing.