Graduate Proposal Manager

Up to £35,000 dependent on experience

Remote - Monday - Friday

So, you’ve never heard of a Proposal Manager? Don’t worry – most of us hadn’t either when we started in the bidding world. It’s a role that’s often tucked away in sales or marketing teams, but once the door’s open there are endless possibilities.

Were you one of the few people who actually enjoyed your exams? Did you love trying to hit top marks? Do you have a creative streak but thrive best when everything is organised?

We’re looking for a detail-driven, creative, and confident graduate to join our bold and brilliant team of bid professionals, proposal managers, writers, and designers – we’re an assorted bunch!

We’re offering you the opportunity to join an inspiring, fun and boundary pushing team within a FTSE100 company. Starting as an entry level proposal manager you’ll be working with the proposal team across a wide range of sectors, to support the creation of work winning bids.

We also offer an achievable route to progression, with full training programmes and the platform to succeed. Your goal might be to be a bid writer, a senior bid manager, designer - you can do all of that here, and we’ll help you get there.

On top of all of that, did we mention we’re a catering company, that’s food – and who doesn’t like food?

The Proposal Manager will support and produce creative, strategic, solution based bid proposals, manage day-to-day bid activity, ensuring a compliant, compelling bid which communicates the agreed win strategies and win themes:

• Lead and manage in all aspects of bid creation, management and submission.
• Manage the creation of proposals and presentations.  This includes; bid writing standard and some technical content, project management of the entire bid lifecycle, supporting the development of win strategies, and persuasive delivery structures, creating the bid brand guidelines and managing external suppliers and consultants.  The Proposal Manager will research, author, edit and challenge content.
• Track and manage progress of the bid through the Compliance Matrix.  Regularly communicate progress updates to the entire bid team.
• Support Sales and Retention Lead in identifying win strategies, solution design, and management of tender clarification logs and preparation of the Bid Overview template prior to the kick-off workshop.
• Support kick off workshops for entire bid team ensuring win themes are captured, competitor and SWOT analysis. The Proposal Manager will ensure the winning strategy and win themes are articulated effectively throughout the bid response.  The Proposal Manager will produce the Win Theme document for distribution in conjunction with the Sales and Retention lead.
• Support sector bid writers in creating responses. Supporting and managing storyboard sessions where the Proposal Manager will help team members to structure and write responses.
• Support the design process using Adobe Creative Suite to create high impact bids, proposals and presentations.
• Brief Design Managers collaborating with conceptual development, artworking and printing
• Conduct post-pitch debriefs with Bid Leaders to collate any new content submitted within the bid and feedback to the bid content team.

The successful Propsal Manager will have;

• A degree with a 2:1 or above
• Excellent communication skills
• Exceptional planning and organising skills – multi-tasking is key!
• Exceptional writing or design skills
• High attention to detail
• A self-starter and problem-solver who can work under pressure
• Ability to work on own initiative, autonomously and be proactive
• Creative and not afraid to share your ideas
• Comfortable working remotely and engaging with the team
• Must be able to work collaboratively
• Proficient in the use of the Microsoft package.