The conversation started with a rejection most senior procurement professionals will recognise. Yulia Omelchuk, a procurement leader with more than nineteen years negotiating multi-million-euro contracts, building category strategies and running transformations, was told in recent recruitment conversations that she needed more Marketing procurement experience, and that another role required specific Coupa implementation experience.
Her response became the framing device for the debate. Imagine you have been buying bananas for ten years and a company needs someone to buy apples. Does that mean you no longer know how to buy? The product is one part of the equation. Real expertise is understanding markets, building strategies, negotiating, managing risk, solving problems and delivering results. Product knowledge can be acquired. Tools can be learned. Professional judgement takes years.
Her question to hiring managers was direct: are you hiring for specific product knowledge, or for the expertise and ability to create value?
What followed was one of the more honest exchanges the profession has had on hiring, including a recruiter who explained exactly why the market has moved against her.
The Recruiter’s Answer
The most valuable contribution came from the other side of the table. Alex McDougall, a procurement recruiter at Pod Talent, declined to defend the practice and explained it instead.
“Procurement leaders and talent teams are narrowing briefs in response to pressure, from CxO level, from margins being squeezed, unstable economic outlook, and recruitment is becoming more risk averse. It’s been a bit of a trip back in time to when I started in procurement recruitment back in 2017. Industry and category experience is becoming more important as companies seek to avoid a bad hire.”
That is the mechanism, and it is worth understanding before blaming recruiters. Narrow briefs are not a talent assessment philosophy. They are a risk-management response to economic pressure. A hiring manager who picks an exact-match candidate and fails can point to the CV. One who picks a transferable-skills candidate and fails owns the decision personally.
Darya Miskevich, a talent acquisition founder, named the structural reason the pattern persists. “Transferable skills are much more difficult to evaluate than product knowledge. People tend to move along the easiest road possible.”
Daria Khitsenko, a head of procurement in manufacturing and FMCG, pointed at the contradiction. “I joined several conferences in the last few months, and critical thinking, adaptability and all sorts of soft skills are always mentioned as the main focus for valuable workforce. And one of the biggest gaps the leaders see in their current teams.” The conferences say one thing. The job specs say another.
The Dissent Worth Taking Seriously
The transferable-skills case won the thread, but it did not win unopposed, and the pushback was specific rather than reflexive.
Joanna R., who has worked across procurement and med-tech, drew a line. “Buying steel is a completely different story from buying plums. Anyone who has ever sourced steel knows exactly what I mean. Beyond the purchasing process itself, there is also sourcing and long-term development strategy to consider. In many cases, industry knowledge is absolutely crucial, and even negotiations, not haggling, follow a completely different set of rules.”
Adam Gray, a commercial and category strategist in FMCG, tested the analogy properly rather than accepting it. Both fruits have expiration dates, similar purchase units, similar storage constraints. But what if they come from different countries, are bought on different units, or have different logistics requirements, one chilled and one ambient? His conclusion sat in the middle. “Sometimes specific experience trumps transferable skills, but I do agree that too often hiring teams have no understanding of what can be learned versus what can be transferred.”
Justin Goldup accepted the general case and isolated the exception. “Where I disagree is where specific knowledge like more Coupa implementation experience is required, as the specific knowledge of process, pitfalls, lessons learnt gained from having done it a few times cannot be replaced with more general procurement skills.”
That distinction holds up. Category knowledge is learnable on the job. Implementation scar tissue is not, because the value of having done it three times is knowing which decisions wreck the project in month seven.
Nasir Chowdhury offered the cleanest version of the boundary. “If you know how to fix a Toyota, you should understand the fundamental principles of how a BMW works, even if you need to learn some model-specific differences. But if you’re a heart specialist, I certainly wouldn’t recommend you perform brain surgery.”
The Rebuttal From Someone Who Did Both
The strongest counter to the steel-versus-plums objection came from Ayo Adebowale, a global procurement and commercial negotiation leader who has done exactly that comparison.
“I’ve procured steel and sourced apples, two vastly different categories, and yes, each came with its own complexities, stakeholder dynamics, and market nuances. However, the core expertise that enabled me to succeed in both didn’t originate from prior category experience. It came from foundational procurement competencies: strategic thinking, stakeholder management, analytical rigour, and commercial acumen. I entered both categories with zero industry knowledge, learned what was needed on the job, and delivered strong results in each.”
His closing line is the fairest resolution offered anywhere in the discussion. “Transferable skills may not be everything, but they are the foundation upon which category expertise is built.”
Eduardo Lafayette Almeida supplied the lived version. “I started my career purchasing frozen chicken for Walmart, then metal fabricated items, huge electric motors for the oil and gas industry. 80% of the process is exactly the same.”
The Line That Ended the Argument
Ben Collins, a consultant working in contract technology, delivered the observation that drew the most reactions in the thread and is difficult to answer.
“Funny how the most senior executives seem to have transferable skills, swapping between unrelated industries at the highest levels, but the rest of us don’t.”
That is the inconsistency the profession should sit with. A CEO moving from telecoms to retail is called a strong appointment. A category manager moving from packaging to marketing is called a risk. The principle apparently applies in one direction only, and nobody in the discussion offered a defence of it.
Where the Problem Actually Starts
Several contributors argued the failure happens before any CV is screened. Maxime Piguet, a procurement leader and founder, put it bluntly. “More often than not, asking for very specific experience is more of a sign that the hiring manager or talent acquisition manager doesn’t really know what they are looking for. The fallback option is to ask for someone who had been buying bananas through e-auction on Ariba for at least 11.5 years.”
Juan F. P., a procurement transformation executive, explained how the brief gets written. “In many organisations, hiring managers are not always clear about what they actually need. Instead of defining the responsibilities, challenges and capabilities required for the role, they often use the previous jobholder as their reference.”
Fatima K., who runs industrial sourcing for data centre and petrochemical projects, offered the interview question that would replace the checklist. “I’d ask a candidate: when did you walk away from the lowest quote, and why? That answer can tell you a lot about their judgment.”
That single question tests commercial reasoning, risk assessment and the confidence to defend an unpopular call. No category filter does any of that.
Takeaways for Procurement Leaders
Three lessons run through the discussion. First, separate learnable category knowledge from genuine specialist scar tissue. A new commodity is a learning curve. A fourth system implementation is accumulated judgement about where projects fail. Only the second justifies a hard filter.
Second, write the brief from the problem, not from the last person who held the job. If the role exists to rebuild a sourcing strategy, screen for people who have rebuilt one, whatever they were buying at the time.
Third, test judgement in the interview rather than inferring it from the CV. Ask about the quote they walked away from, the supplier they fired, the recommendation they lost. The checklist cannot tell you any of that.
If you were hiring tomorrow, could you explain which requirement on your spec is genuinely non-negotiable, and why?
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