1. What skills or personal qualities are good for this job?

Obviously, technical proficiency is step one, but after that it's important to have interpersonal/people skills. You're constantly communicating and collaborating with people, trying to solve problems together, communicating your concerns or ideas, and approaching people and situations in a way they can understand. You need to be able to relay information in non-technical terms, in the way people can understand it and take actions needed. Oftentimes, there are problems that arise that a group needs to solve and we need to work with each other and communicate the needs of each area to find a solution that's good for the company.

2. Why Do You Want to Leave Your Current Employer as Supply Chain Manager?

This should be straightforward. Reflect positively on your current employer but state how you are looking for more challenge, responsibility, experience and a change of environment. Explain how your current role can no longer provide you with these things, but how you believe the role offered presents an opportunity for growth that will make full use of your strengths and potential.

3. What do you enjoy most about your job?

GGL is an open environment that fosters a lot of growth. I get to take on projects that I'm really interested in, like the sales and operations planning project. I was interested in the finance side of things, so I was able to start and lead an initiative on that side of things that benefits the company. I like the nerdy stuff, like running numbers and doing analytics, making spreadsheets and models. I love being able to make a recommendation and eventually see the results - all from a numbers analysis that hadn't previously being done.

4. What Did You Like/Dislike About Your Last Role?

The interviewer is trying to find out your key interests and whether the job offered has responsibilities you will dislike. Focus on what you particularly enjoyed in your last role and what you learned from it, drawing parallels to the new role. When addressing what you disliked, be conscious not to criticize your last employer. Choose an example that does not reflect on your skills (such as company size) or which reveals a positive trait (such as your dislike for prolonged decision making).

5. What Are Your Goals For The Future as Supply Chain Manager?

A sense of purpose is an attractive feature in an applicant, so this question is designed to probe your ambition and the extent of your career planning. Your commitment is also under question, but avoid blankly stating, "I want to be with your company." Instead, describe how your goal is to continue to grow, learn, add value and take on new responsibilities in the future that build on the role for which you are applying.

6. Tell me how does your job benefit the environment?

My job is about optimization. We're trying to reduce waste, reduce cost for transportation, maximize storage, and help dealers do business. In Taiwan, we have a third-party consolidator who makes sure all our orders are shipping together, so we're getting one complete container of product versus four partial containers. So we're saving transportation cost and not wasting shipping space. For our dealers, we act as "just-in-time" inventory, so the shop doesn't have to worry about carrying lots of inventory or ordering random parts to fulfill their orders. Ultimately, it's about having the right amount of inventory at the right time, especially given the seasonality of biking.

As a company, we're conscious of our impact. Our building is LEED Gold-certified, and we're proud of our work to protect the environment. We also are trying to reduce our environmental footprint, so we expanded to another warehouse in Utah closer to our west coast customers. We can use ground transportation rather than air for that inventory, which saves a lot of transportation costs and emissions.

7. What is the Most Difficult Situation You Have Faced at Work?

The interviewer is trying to find out your definition of 'difficult' and whether you can show a logical approach to problem solving. Select a tough work situation that was not caused by you. Explain the way you approached the problem, including the actions you took and the solution you applied to overcome the problem. Give your answer with the air of someone who takes setbacks and frustrations in stride, as part of the job.

8. Tell me what changes in this field do you expect to see in the future?

The field is growing, and it's all still being figured out. Prior to my position, there was no supply chain analyst at Quality Bicycle Products. It's a growing field and it's becoming more of a necessity because everyone is trying to reduce waste and reduce their environmental impact. They are doing things that are good for the environment, but also good for the company's bottom line. Because of that, more and more colleges are now offering majors in logistics and supply chain planning, which wasn't as common when I was in school. I think these types of positions are going to continue to grow in the coming years.

9. Supply Chain Manager Job Interview Questions:

☛ What do you understand by Supply Chain Management
☛ Explain complete supply chain cycle starting from Business Planning to Sales and including procurement(for MTO and MTS environment).
☛ What is Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process and what are the advantages of S&OP process ?
☛ Explain demand planning process you have handled or handling.
☛ Explain Procure to Pay to Pay cycle?
☛ How do you search a supplier
☛ Explain the Vendor rating process
☛ What are the risks in procurement how do you minimise these risks
☛ What is spend analysis and how do you use spend analysis to reduce the procurement costs and processing costs
☛ What are the GL postings in procure to pay cycle?
☛ What are the different types of matching such as 2 way, 3 way or 4 way and why these are required?
☛ Explain Sales order to billing cycle?
☛ What are the GL postings during sales order to billing cycle?
☛ What are different inventory Valuations?
☛ What are the different Inventory analysis ? how do you do ABC, XYZ and FSN analysis?
☛ What is the difference between Physical inventory and Cycle counting and which process is better ? and why?
☛ What are the different types of MRP runs (i.e. Regenerative, Net Change etc).
☛ Explain Consumption based planning and Demand based planning, which is better and how?
☛ How do you calculate safety stock for consumption based planning ?
☛ How do you plan the requirements of material which are very rarely moving and unpredictable in demand?
☛ what are insurance items?
☛ What is Bullwhip effect in supply Chain, how it affects the supply chain and how would you reduce it?
☛ Explain Stock transfer cycles between two locations and what are the GL postings ?
☛ What would be your sourcing strategy to buy low value items?
☛ Explain Scrap Sales process and the GL postings during the process.
☛ Explain SCOR and CFPR models
☛ How would you evaluate the inventory performance ? What is Inventory Turn Over ratio and what would you recommend to increase it under a set of assumptions.
☛ What is Bill Of material what information it contains?
☛ What is in-transit inventory and how it is calculated, how do you monitor in-transit inventory levels?
☛ What are different types of contracts ( Blanket and Fixed) in procurement, which type of contract should be used in what conditions.
☛ What the normal terms and conditions in a agreement while signing it with a supplier?
☛ How do you negotiate with a supplier and what could be the negotiation points during negotiation process?
☛ What are the GL postings in Stock revaluation and stock adjustment transactions?
☛ How do you manage stock out situations?
☛ What is Planning horizon and how does it impact MRP and MPS run results ?
☛ How do you fix the credit limits of the customers (Distributors, Dealers)
☛ Tell me a situation when you negotiated with a vendor successfully.
☛ How do you analyse Inventory Shrinkages?

10. Fresh Supply Chain Manager Job Interview Questions:

☛ Is quality built into your supply chain, or do inspection and correction occur after the fact?
☛ Is supply chain management a strategic senior level position in your organization or is it a part of an operations activity?
☛ Is the movement of information and money as critical in your supply chain as the movement of materials? In other words, does it take longer to create paperwork and process payments than it takes to deliver the goods?
☛ Do you have a built-in change management process that constantly reviews the elements of your supply chain and looks for opportunities to improve quality and operational efficiency-or do your systems, policies and procedures block improvement?
☛ Does your supply chain minimize the amount of touches and the touch time in supply chain transactions, so as to reduce the number of potential failure points?

Download Interview PDF