Purchasing Managers

People in this career often have these skills:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
• Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
• Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
• Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.

People in this career often know a lot about:

• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.

• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Administrative - Knowledge of administrative and office procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and workplace terminology.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.

People in this career often have talent in:

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.

• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.

People in this career often do these activities:

• Implement organizational process or policy changes.
• Develop organizational policies or programs.
• Develop operating strategies, plans, or procedures.
• Interview employees, customers, or others to collect information.
• Coordinate with external parties to exchange information.

• Prepare financial documents, reports, or budgets.
• Supervise employees.
• Examine financial records to ensure compliance with policies or regulations.
• Verify information or specifications.
• Approve expenditures.
• Direct financial operations.
• Prepare forms or applications.
• Conduct employee training programs.
• Hire personnel.
• Analyze data to assess operational or project effectiveness.
• Prepare operational budgets.
• Resolve employee or contractor problems.
• Analyze data to inform operational decisions or activities.
• Implement transportation changes to reduce environmental impact.
• Develop specifications for new products or processes.
• Maintain operational records.
• Negotiate sales or lease agreements for products or services.
• Schedule product or material transportation.

• Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers

• Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products

• Supply Chain Managers

• Logistics Analysts

• Marketing Managers

• Logisticians

• Training and Development Managers

• General and Operations Managers