Acquiring the right supplies and managing expenses is crucial in business. That’s where you shine by creating effective purchasing strategies, negotiating prices, and managing vendor relationships.
Have you chosen a suitable resume template and strategically planned your resume to help you acquire your next job?
While you know how to analyze market trends and charts of data with ease, displaying your top job skills on a short resume can feel like a much more challenging task. We’re here to help with these purchasing manager resume examples and a cover letter maker that helped many procurement professionals land jobs in 2024.
Why this resume works
- Crafting a purchasing manager resume? Picture it as writing a ledger, where each entry demonstrates your finesse in sourcing and procuring the best quality items at the most reasonable cost, much like scouring for treasure with an eagle’s eye. Take a leaf from Ethan’s piece.
- Spice up your professional experience with solid, numbers-backed statements. So, instead of bland statements like “ensured compliance” why not pack a punch with specifics like “improving compliance with industry standards by 29%” or something like “increasing accuracy in supplier’s monthly reports by 36%?”. The difference is night and day, with metrics stealing the show.
- Given the demands of a purchasing manager role, kick off your bullet points with assertive verbs that scream leadership and foresight, such as “Lowered,” “Created,” and “Improved”. These words place you in the role of a mover and shaker, someone who’s out there changing the game.
- How about reflecting the job description’s language in your resume? If the job ad highlights “Supply Chain Optimization,” include a statement showing your mastery in this area. See highlights like “reinforced previous procurement policies,” “helping the team make better decisions with real-time data” and “expedited onboarding process”
- And don’t let your proficiencies (think strategic planning, vendor relationships, and market analysis) be mere footnotes; weave them into your work history. Yeap, making your resume a compelling story of success couldn’t be easier. Notice how Ethan uses insights from Jagegr Supplier Management, supervises vendors with SAP S/4HANA, and generates detailed procurement reports with Power BI.
Why this resume works
- Picture your formerly bland purchasing agent resume transformed, now more than a list of jobs and skills. It’s a compelling narration of your professional journey, peppered with numbers and action-packed verbs that make hiring managers do a double-take. Let’s see how effortlessly you can echo Ava’s hacks for sculpting a professional narrative that captures eyes and wins over hearts with a moment’s glance.
- Turn the plain old “helped save a few bucks here and there” into something jaw-dropping like “reduced all associated costs by 26%.” And instead of “streamlined procurement” say “lowered the time to clear each process.” It’s about making your resume shimmer with achievements that come with real digits attached. And that won’t just boost credibility; it lays bare your potential for success.
- Then, there are the skills such as “cost negotiation,” “inventory management,” and “analytical skills”. Don’t just mention them; sprinkle your narration with how you applied these proficiencies. That makes your resume pulse with life, besides showcasing a well-rounded asset. And let’s not forget the industry-specific tools (cue Coupa, Procurify, and RFPIO).
- Take not action verbs as just fancy dressing for your resume; use them to position yourself as an active contributor to cost-efficiency and productivity, not someone sitting on the sidelines. The list could range from “negotiated,” “Led,” and “Pioneered” to “Processed”.
- When it comes to matching the job description’s language, turn into a chameleon. If “Supplier relationship management” is emphasized, highlight your wizardry in nurturing and leveraging these relationships for mutual benefit. Ava’s “streamlining purchase operations” and “strategic negotiations and long-term deals” signal someone in perfect harmony with the needs of a company filling the position of a purchasing agent.
Why this resume works
- Even with a knack for snagging the best deals for his employers, Henry isn’t content just keeping score. See how he adds pizzaz to his purchasing assistant resume with punchy action verbs, quantified achievements, clear narration of relevant skills, and a work history dialed into the job’s needs. Such are the pieces that beam efficiency and keen market insight.
- Let’s for a moment chat about those human and automated gatekeepers (read hiring managers and ATS systems). Finding favor with these guardians demands mirroring the job ad, weaving in keywords smoothly. Phrases that could mesh well with what a company desires from a purchasing assistant include “sustainability-focused procurement strategy” and “ensuring no disruption in service delivery and prompt resolutions.”
- Never play coy with metrics; flaunt them like no one’s business. Statements such as “increasing environmentally friendly purchases for food containers by 37%” and “improving data accuracy by 21%” are concrete evidence of your knack for making a tangible impact.
- Don’t stick to mild old action verbs when you paint a masterpiece with action-packed terms like “Audited,” “Developed” and “Handled.” These aren’t just for show; they sketch an image of a purchasing assistant who’s all about action and results.
- Why settle for a bland list of skills or tools in your resume’s side column when you can weave them into your work history like Henry? Pay attention to the highlights of TradeGecko, Google Sheets, and SharePoint. Here, Parker isn’t merely claiming to have these talents — he’s lived them, with the outcomes to prove it.
Related resume examples
Customize Your Purchasing Manager Resume to the Job Description
Every company’s purchasing strategy will present unique needs. For example, you always need to account for industry trends and the specific materials necessary to produce products when planning your approach. The same is true when optimizing your resume.
You’ll want to use your analytical skills to review the job description and identify what acquisition skills each company is seeking. Do they need help with compliance? Then, your ability to create effective procurement policies may be essential to list.
Need some ideas?
15 best purchasing manager skills
- Logistics Management
- Forecasting
- IBM Maximo
- Vendor relations
- Negotiation
- SAP
- Budget Management
- QuickBooks
- Global Sourcing
- NetSuite
- Lean Manufacturing
- Ariba
- QlikView
- Oracle PeopleSoft
- Microsoft Project
Your purchasing manager work experience bullet points
Every purchasing specialist knows that data is key in decision-making. Hiring managers also look for metrics to determine if you’ll be the best candidate for their needs.
In your work experience references, you’ll want to use your knowledge of core business metrics to your advantage to show how you’re successful. For example, you could explain how you reduced material costs while maintaining quality assurance standards.
Here are some excellent metrics for purchasing managers to use on resumes.
- Supply chain disruptions: Every purchasing manager needs to keep quality and accessibility in mind during procurement, so limiting supply chain disruptions is crucial.
- Budgetary adherence: Companies always have a budget they want to hit to ensure a good ROI, so being able to manage spending accordingly will make your skills stand out.
- Carbon footprint: Companies must be concerned with emissions and ecologically friendly operations during material acquisition and usage to comply with industry standards.
- Data accuracy: While forecasting and budgeting for expenses, the accuracy of the data you gather will be vital to success.
See what we mean?
- Assisted in developing a sustainability-focused procurement strategy, increasing environmentally friendly purchases for food containers by 37%.
- Led training initiatives to teach multiple departments about effectively using SharePoint and Procore, enhancing overall team productivity by 49%.
- Integrated cloud solutions procurement through Coupa, streamlining purchase operations and reducing server costs by 9%.
- Lowered supply chain disruption-related incidents by 43% using insights from Jaggaer Supplier Management.
9 active verbs to start your purchasing manager work experience bullet points
- Lowered
- Updated
- Managed
- Created
- Distributed
- Acquired
- Generated
- Reduced
- Planned
3 Tips for a Successful Purchasing Manager Resume if You Lack Experience
- Get creative with how you showcase leadership
- When you haven’t worked as a manager before, it can feel confusing how you’ll showcase leadership skills. However, there are still ways for inexperienced purchasing manager applicants to do so. For example, you could explain how you educated teams on efficient material usage to reduce expenses by 34%.
- Show high amounts of technical ability
- While you may not have much management experience, you can still showcase high levels of technical skills from previous procurement or logistics roles. For example, how you use IBM Maximo to create maintenance procedures that help extend asset lifecycles by 49%.
- Present how education has equipped you for the role
- Your degree in supply chain management or related fields will have also equipped you with many abilities you need for the role. So, even if you don’t have much work experience, you could still explain how you used QuickBooks for 78% more accurate expense planning in a class project.
3 Tips to Create an Outstanding Purchasing Manager Resume if You Have Experience
- Keep it on a single page
- While you may have a lot of procurement experience, you’ll still want to limit yourself to a one-page resume for easy review. To narrow it down, focus on the primary needs of each job. For example, a company looking for help with global sourcing will like seeing applicants who emphasize their experience in international forecasting and stakeholder relations.
- Consider using a resume summary
- When you have a ton of experience, showcasing some highly relevant skills and achievements in a resume summary can help you stand out. For example, you could write a few sentences about using Oracle PeopleSoft to manage spending and performance data for 50 global company locations to ensure a 97% success rate in budgetary adherence.
- Eliminate irrelevant jobs
- If you’ve worked at more than four jobs, you don’t have to list them all on your resume since that would be too much for hiring managers to review. That means you can eliminate ones like supply chain management internships or data entry clerk roles that won’t be relevant anymore.
Reverse chronological formatting will work best for purchasing managers. It’ll help emphasize your most recent and relevant forecasting and negotiation experiences while allowing hiring managers to easily look back and see how you’ve grown throughout your career.
Your cover letter can fill in any details that were left out on your resume. For example, you could write about how you connect with the company’s mission and want to use your proficiency in lean manufacturing to help their dynamic team achieve more efficient operations.
Speaking in an active voice using action words like “purchased” or “analyzed” will help you present engaging and results-driven examples that will stand out to hiring managers. For example, saying you “analyzed 1,083 spending records to identify 55 opportunities to reduce costs” sounds far more engaging than simply saying you’re “proficient in spending analysis.”
