Article · Professional Services

A $9m tender and a role that should not be filled as designed

Brief taken on Friday, role rebuilt over the weekend, operator secured within a week. Two days after she started, the tender landed.

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A bound tender document on a desk

The brief arrived on a Friday. A national firm needed a senior BD person in place quickly, with a major tender expected and the previous incumbent gone. The role as written was a like for like replacement: a full time, permanent head of pursuits at a package that reflected the last person, not the work.

Reading the brief over the weekend, the problem was clear. The firm did not need a permanent head of pursuits. It needed an operator who could run one large tender to a very high standard, build a repeatable process around it and hand it over. That is a different role, with a different cost base and a different kind of person.

So the role was rebuilt. The permanent headcount came out, which removed a fixed cost the firm did not need. The delivery model changed to an interim engagement with a defined scope and a clear end point. The price was reset to reflect the work rather than the title. And the search was pointed at a short list of people who had actually run tenders of that size, not people who had managed teams that had.

The operator was secured within a week. Two days after she started, the tender landed. It came in at just over $9m.

The value was not filling the role quickly. It was recognising that the role should not be filled as originally designed: removing unnecessary fixed cost, changing the delivery model, repricing it and finding the right operator. That is what a recruiter should be doing with a brief, and it is the part most firms never see.

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