Bid Writer Christian: One Month In

Background

After working in the recruitment sector for 20 years, I have a solid insight into a number of different industries and sectors and have helped many national companies with growth and strategic recruitment. This involved bidding for public sector contracts on behalf of my own firm and also helping the clients I worked closely with over a number of years, so I understand the bid and tender process and have many transferrable skills. I am particularly looking forward to working directly with Executive Compass’ large client base and contributing to their success.

Bid Writer – Wolverhampton Translation Project

I joined the Executive Compass team in mid-July and initially undertook training with MD, Neil Capstick, to introduce me to the company’s structure, the specialised bid writing process the team works to, and their large client base. The company works with a range of different industries, from dentists to demolition, so there is the opportunity to work with a range of organisations on very interesting projects.

My first tender submission has been assisting Neil with a long-term interpretation and translation client. Neil has worked with this company for over five years, since the early days of Executive Compass. They provide a range of services across the UK and internationally, so it was a good project for me to start with.

The client is very knowledgeable and we have an extensive bid library on file, as we have already completed a large number of bids for the company. As with all the PQQs and tenders we complete, Neil and I carried out a couple of conference calls with the director and her team to discuss the questions in the Wolverhampton tender, and then all responses were written up in-house and quality assured, before being sent to our proof reader, Jane. This is the process with every single project Executive Compass work on, and is in line with the UKAS ISO 9001:2008-certified quality management system. As a new member to the team, the feedback and review process is very beneficial and I am already learning a lot about the ‘house style’ at Executive Compass.

Executive Compass has a very open office and even though each bid writer manages their own PQQ and tender submissions and clients, collaborative working and information sharing happens throughout the day. We start the morning with a ‘pulse meeting’ to go through each project we are working on (usually there are around 30–40 so there is a lot going on!) to discuss the progress of the bid, the quality assurance timeline and any issues/points for discussion. The other bid writers in the team are working on a variety of interesting submissions, such as a civils tender for Network Rail, a substance misuse recovery ITT and a PQQ for an MOD contract, to name a few.

Next steps

The Wolverhampton contract I have been working on is due to be submitted by the client this week and all last minute amends and adjustments have been completed in advance of this. My next project will be a repair and maintenance PQQ for a new client based in the South-East, and I will also be assisting my colleague, Tom, when we meet a local health and social care client next week, where I will be a secondary writer on a forthcoming bid.

I am looking forward to working on my next few tender submissions and building up my own bank of clients. So far, so good!