\u201cWhat is a more professional job: corporate purchasing or fingernail painting?\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t miss updates on Procurement & Supply Chain, Subscribe here!<\/p>\n
Interesting title, eh?<\/p>\n
And, because I know the typical demographics of my readers, it is very likely that you answered \u201cDuh, corporate purchasing!\u201d<\/p>\n
But is it?<\/p>\n
Well, consider this\u2026every state in the United States requires \u201cnail technicians\u201d to acquire a certain number of hours of training before they are licensed and thus allowed to work in a fingernail-painting job. Alaska requires a mere 120 hours of training. My home state of Pennsylvania requires a below-average 200 hours of training. And the pack is led by Alabama and Arkansas, which both require 750 hours of training. To paint fingernails. (source: beautyschoolsdirectory.com)<\/p>\n
And what training is required to become a purchasing professional?<\/p>\n
None.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way it is. Not the way it should be.<\/p>\n
A Spend Matters whitepaper, entitled \u201cWhat Is Your Best Option? Purchasing Certification and Training Today,\u201d notes that \u201cresearch suggests that fewer than 10 percent of the procurement workforce in North America has a procurement certification or has gone through a formal degree program in supply management or a related field.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, 100% of nail technicians had accumulated a minimum number of hours of training before being allowed to do their jobs. And less than 10% of purchasing professionals have accumulated a minimum number of hours of training.<\/p>\n
Who is to blame?<\/p>\n
Well, unlike the fingernail painting \u201cprofession,\u201d the government has left the purchasing profession in the hands of practitioners and employers. And both have almost abused that freedom by not getting training or requiring certification of purchasing job candidates.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a shame. And, acquiring a purchasing certification doesn\u2019t even require the same number of hours as the least restrictive nail technician license. As an example, the SPSM\u00ae<\/sup> Certification requires 44 hours of training in the six online classes that comprise the Senior Professional in Supply Management\u00ae<\/sup> Program.<\/p>\n You mean to tell me that 90% of purchasing professionals can\u2019t spare 44 hours over six months or a year?<\/p>\n Or that employers are too timid to require prospective employees to have spent a piddly 44 hours of learning how to do a job that may have them spending tens of millions of dollars and evaluating products and services that might involve substantial amounts of risk?<\/p>\n Who else is embarrassed by this behavior in our profession?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWhat is a more professional job: corporate purchasing or fingernail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n