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Qualifications

Education and Experience

Proposal Coordination is a demanding, often hectic career choice. If you want to enter it, you'll need to show that you're up to the task.

A college degree is a good start. Most Proposal Coordination job listings call for at least a Bachelor's degree, usually in English, Journalism, Communications, or an industry-specific field.

Employers often care for experience at least as much as education, usually calling for 3 years or more.

Some employers will waive either experience or education requirements if you meet the other.

As both a management and writing/editing role, some employers look for experience in both roles, listed separately.

Some job listings want people with industry-specific experience, like a healthcare company preferring to hire people with medical writing experience.

Industry and content-specific knowledge

Proposal Coordinator jobs rarely exist in a realm of pure language.

Proposals are, after all, about telling a potential client that you are the company that best fits their needs. You need to be able to sell yourself and effectively market your services.

This means that a Proposal Coordinator can work in nearly any industry (i.e. environmental engineering, IT, Defense, etc.)

Employers tend to prefer coordinators with some knowledge or experience of the industry.

At a Glance:

Education: Bachelor's +
Experience: 3+ years
Key Skills: What do I need to be able to do?
- Writing and Editing
- Information Gathering and Management
- Leadership and Team Management
Traits: What sorts of people are employers looking for?
- Motivated
- Independent
- Proactive
- Detail oriented
- Team-oriented
- Adaptable
- Results-Driven
Proficiencies: What specific tools would I need to use?
- Government Processes and Regulations
- Industry-specific knowledge
- Proposal processes
- Various document types
- Software Programs:
  - Office Productivity
  - Adobe Creative Suite, especially Acrobat
  - Misc
- General Computer use
Professional Organizations and Certifications:
- APMP
- APM
- AMA
- Shipley

Skills

This list was built from a number of real proposal communicator job listings:

Skills: What do I need to be able to do?
- Writing, including Technical Writing
- Editing/Proofreading
- Multitasking and Deadline Management
- Communications
- Research
- Organizational
- Leadership
- Persuasion and Negotiation
- Project and Team Management
- Analytical and Logical
- Synthesizing information from a variety of sources
- Planning
- Interviewing

Most of these skills can be summarized as:

Writing and Editing
Information Gathering and Management
Leadership and Team Management

A proposal coordinator gathers information and research from a team of subject matter experts (SMEs) and then stitches it all together with language suitable for the client/industry.

Personality Traits

Students often underestimate how important "soft" skills and general social ability really are.

Even a very skilled, well-educated, and experienced worker can make their team actively worse if their personality is...shall we say, a poor fit.

Traits: What sort of person are they looking for?
- Motivated
- Independent
- Proactive
- Detail-oriented
- Team-oriented
- Adaptable
- Results-Driven

Translated from corporate-speak, most employers want someone who can work well either alone or in a group, with or without direct orders.

Tools and Documents

Proficiencies: What specific tools would I need to use?
- Proposal processes
- Various document types
- Software Programs
  - Microsoft Office/Google Suites/iWork
  - Adobe Creative Suite, especially Acrobat
  - PDF writer
  - Misc
  - General Computer use
- Industry-specific knowledge
- Government Processes and Regulations

As you can see, most proposal coordinators need a general background in computer use and common business and design programs.

There's also a wealth of information around the actual proposal process, especially when it comes to government contracts.

Professional Organizations and Certifications:

Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) (specific)
Association for Project Management (APM) (General)
American Marketing Association | AMA
Shipley Associates

The above organizations-APMP, APM, and AMA-all have some relevance to Proposal Coordination and Management.

The APMP is, as the name suggests, focused on proposal management and related processes. Many employers prefer, but not always require, proposal coordinators with their certifications,

The APM is a more general group, their resources and certifications could be worthwhile to someone with the time and money to take advantage of it.

The AMA is a marketing organization, and proposals are essentially a form of marketing to a potential client. Their certifications are fairly popular in proposal management.

Shipley is the odd one out-it isn’t so much a professional organization as it is a consulting firm. It does, however, offer both training and certification in proposal processes. Interestingly, Shipley and APMP were both founded by the same man.

Now, that’s a lot of acronyms to sort out, but don’t worry too much. If you can only get one of these certifications, get it from Shipley.