Studying the qualities required for the role and understanding the responsibilities of a bid manager can help you become a bid manager. Although a background in contractual estimating or management will be beneficial when applying for a bid manager job, there are no formal qualifications or scholarly courses that can help an individual who wants to become a bid manager. To become a bid manager, you must first find an open position or follow a career path that leads to that position. To become a bid manager, most people gain general industry experience and work their way up from a bid coordination position. Bid managers, like estimators, are critical to an organization’s survival and employees’ long-term job security.
A bid manager’s role in an organization is critical. Dealing with bid production and submission is a highly competitive environment, and a company’s ability to submit bids on a consistent basis is critical to its survival. The job description for a bid manager varies by company, but it usually entails overseeing the entire bidding process. This will necessitate communication with estimators who complete the bid’s pricing section and quality writers who prepare the submission’s written section.
A bid manager will be responsible for liaising with operational staff as well as collating input from two sectors to produce a concise document. If the bid is successful, these are the people who will be involved in the day-to-day operations of the resulting contract. A bid manager will ensure that the final submitted bid is clear, concise, consistent, and fully compliant with the client’s needs by bringing all of these disciplines together. To be a bid manager, an applicant must be able to read, comprehend, and correctly interpret the bid requirements.
Working through an organization’s operational, contractual, or estimating divisions is the most common path to a position in bid management. It is possible to acquire all of the knowledge and skill sets required to successfully perform the bid management role by following a career path through these sectors with the end goal of becoming a bid manager. Because of the high-pressure environment surrounding bid submission, an applicant for bid manager must be able to think clearly and quickly, be motivating but firm, and maintain calm under pressure.