“There are jobs around, but you need to show an employer what you are capable of quickly, and have strong knowledge of the areas you are bidding for.” Entry “The public sector market is still relatively buoyant,” Kevin Jones adds. The downturn has made the winning of new work and retention of existing contracts hugely important, so good bid managers will always be in demand. Strong written communication skills are equally essential. Since you may give presentations to clients, you should also be an articulate, confident speaker. You need to deal with complex business relationships and manage multiple resources to deliver a strong, winning case to the prospective client. Good bid managers listen to other people’s views while having confidence in their own convictions and express their own opinions well.

Bid managers are also able to use their industry experience to understand complicated technical information. You will have to cope with a substantial amount of responsibility, remain calm under sometimes severe pressure, and be able to read and interpret instructions carefully. So are leadership and team work – no one can produce a bid singlehandedly. Time management, efficiency, the ability to meet deadlines and work with minimal supervision are all important. The best bid managers are quick on their feet and assertive yet tactful in motivating other members of a bid team to produce a successful submission. But, as an important submission deadline approaches, you may be doing very long hours. Most of the time you will work a relatively standard week. Some projects may mean being away for longer. You are likely to be mainly office-based with some external client meetings and site visits which could involve overnight stays. “You should be willing to work your way up, be extremely organised and learn quickly.” Hours and environment When the team wins a bid it’s fantastic, but with unsuccessful bids, you take the lessons learnt and apply them to the next project. I love building the team at the start of a project and seeing it through to the end. You develop an excellent, rounded knowledge of what you are offering and work with a wide variety of people. A chartered engineer, he has worked on projects from highways and construction to sewage and water works. More recently he has focused on maintenance contracts.

Kevin Jones is bid manager with public services provider Amey, his employer for the last 20 years. This is collated with the ‘quality’ submission, which is what bid managers generally work on. They work closely with a core team while bringing in subject matter experts when required.Ī bid manager is also the first point of contact for the client, and liaises with estimators who produce the price element of a bid. Bid managers are involved in every aspect of the submission and have an excellent appreciation of what the client needs and how best to articulate how their organisation can provide that. Working under the direction of a bid director, the role involves leading all day-to-day aspects of an individual bid. They ensure that all the client’s questions have been answered as fully as possible, and that the organisation has given itself the best possible chance of success. But, essentially, a bid manager is responsible for submitting a completed bid to an existing or prospective client, on time and within budget. The role and responsibilities of bid manager jobs vary between organisations. They cover a wide range of issues, from health and safety to customer care and staff issues, and are weighted for quality as well as price. Because they are so critical to winning new work, as well as keeping existing contracts, bid managers are vital to a company’s continuing existence, and to job security.īids are detailed, complex documents that often run to hundreds of pages, outlining how the candidate organisation would meet a contract’s requirements. The role of Bid Manager is often poorly understood, yet it is crucial to any organisation’s success.īids are a high-stakes, ultra-competitive business, with no second prizes or chances.

Tender manager definition