An Alternative Approach to Recruiting a Proposal Writer

I recently helped a company recruit a proposal writer. But we did things a little differently…

One of the things I've found over the years is that while it can be learned, proposal writing is also a talent. Some people have the talent to write proposals and some people do not. And it doesn't necessarily match up with their resume. Writing from the customer's perspective and tying features to benefits is a different style of writing than most people are familiar with. I know of people with tons of experience and impressive credentials whose writing is… well… perfectly ordinary. When I'm involved in the hiring, I'm looking for someone better than merely acceptable. I want someone outstanding. And in the case of proposal writing, I want someone with the talent and not just the experience.

So the first thing I realized was that we'd have to ask for a writing sample. One problem with writing samples is that proposals are team efforts and you don't know how much the candidate actually had to do with the final result. Instead, I came up with the idea of a proposal writing challenge. I prepared a page of ordinary proposal content. It wasn't that bad, it just wasn't that good either. It was what I commonly see when I review proposals.

Here are some of the instructions I gave the candidates:

I'm looking for a certain talent. I've seen it in people who never went to college, and I've seen people with doctorates who don't have it. Most people who specialize in proposal writing don't even have it. I'm looking for writers who can be more than simply descriptive. Proposal writing must be about the customer and not about the vendor. It should be completely customized to help the customer make their selection. Make it persuade. Make it sell. It's OK if the finished response looks nothing like the original.

I'm looking for a couple of pages that shows what you can do and that you know what's wrong with the sample and how to improve it. I am not looking for a full and complete 10-page section ready to use in a real proposal.

You are encouraged to make assumptions, add details, insert your own proposed approaches, etc. Just insert notes into the document as you go along. You may also embed comments, instructions, etc. directly into the document. The theme headings should state the conclusion you want the evaluator to reach about what is being proposed in each section. Feel free to use techniques like features/benefits tables and RFP relevance boxes.

Here are some of the results:

• We received 133 responses to our ad. Far more than anticipated.
• Of these we had a high level of interest in 5, a medium of interest in 21, and no interest in 25. The rest we weren't sure about and would require effort. There were a few that we found interesting for other potential opportunities, and will probably get back to them.
• Hourly rates ranged from $25-85/hr. Most of the ones we were interested in happened to fall in the middle of that range.
• We received far more responses from writers/editors and journalists, than from proposal specialists. We also received more responses from grant writers than government proposal writers.

Most people responded by saying that they were interested in the position and included their resume. I was surprised by how many people did not customize their resume or who submitted a writing sample that was not even slightly relevant. Less than half gave us any reason to want them other than the fact that they were interested and available. Please note: If you are applying for a proposal related position, you need to be more persuasive than that!

We received responses by email. The content of their email was more interesting to us than their resume. It was a chance for people to demonstrate their persuasiveness in writing. Some took it. Most did not (and that was a little surprising). I was willing to give people a chance at the writing challenge if they had bad resumes (either content or experience) if their email showed good writing. If their email showed bad writing, they got skipped.

I decided to send the proposal writing challenge to the five I was most interested in, and if that didn't work out, I'd send it to the next batch of people. Out of the five, one showed some potential (but would need some training), and two made improvements to the sample. Two more added information to the sample, but didn't do anything to change its persuasiveness.

Here are some of the conclusions I have reached:

• I would definitely take this approach again --- experience was no indicator of talent. Talent is hard to find.
• While I wanted a wide open field, next time I will change the ad to specifically point out that writers/editors/journalists need to do more than be descriptive and demonstrate they have the ability to sell in writing. I want to give them a chance to show they've got the talent, but if they can't be more than descriptive they shouldn't bother. I might even tell people that while it's good that they are interested and available, I really care a lot more about what they are capable of doing for us as a proposal writer and that anything they send to us in writing should show it.
• Good luck getting it through your Human Resources Department --- just try telling them that you really don't care about the candidate's degrees or experience and that pay should be based on capability. I was lucky in that I could make up my own rules.

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