I had a brief phone conversation today with an SPSM candidate who said something like “I went on a job interview and the interviewer says s/he never heard of the SPSM^® Certification.”

Become a member of one of the world’s largest procurement associations today.

Believe it or not, such incidents do not surprise me. If you haven’t kept up with the purchasing certification field for five or more years, you wouldn’t have heard of the SPSM^® Certification. And, scarily enough, there are some people in hiring-level positions who fail to keep up with the changes in the purchasing and supply management field in general for that many years.

You have a choice when presented with this type of situation: you can feel that you’ve lost or you can use this situation to your advantage.

You know the path I’d recommend, right?

I recommend saying the following: “The purchasing and supply management field is constantly evolving. I dedicate a lot of effort into keeping up-to-date with all of the latest developments. Just one of those developments is the SPSM^® Certification, which was launched in 2004. Earning my SPSM^® Certification has taught me the latest strategies for success that more traditional purchasing certifications ignore, such as: eProcurement, spend analysis, eSourcing/reverse auctions, and strategic sourcing. I think that earning the SPSM^® is a good indicator of my passion for the profession and my commitment to keeping myself up-to-date.“