Job Placement · Supply Chain · Buyer / Planner
BEG places buyer/planners who can negotiate a purchase order and plan the material it belongs to, the dual skill most postings fail to screen for. The Tier II milestone fee runs $9,381 to $11,257, with a 23 to 35 day average fill.
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TL;DR
A buyer/planner owns the purchase orders and the material plan for an assigned set of parts or commodities: reorder points, supplier delivery dates, expedites, and the inventory those parts represent, without owning supplier selection policy, the forecast, or the warehouse. ASCM's Certified in Planning and Inventory Management credential, two exams covering supply planning, execution, and inventory in Part 1 and sales and operations planning and distribution in Part 2, maps closely to that dual scope. BEG prices the search at $9,381 to $11,257 because a posting written at the $77,710 buyer median draws people who can do half the job.
The Hiring Problem
The seat is written as both a buyer and a planner, and the candidates who have done both in the company’s ERP are paid near the upper quartile, so a posting at the median draws a buyer who has never planned or a planner who has never negotiated.
The Search
Most searches fail by screening for one half of the title. BEG tests both sides directly, negotiation on the buy side and reorder logic on the plan side, before a candidate reaches the hiring manager.
| Step | What it requires | Where it stalls |
|---|---|---|
| Split the scope in writing | A clear list of which parts or commodities the seat buys and which inventory targets it plans against | Job descriptions copy a pure buyer template or a pure planner template and bolt the other half on as a bullet point |
| Source across both pools | Reach into both buyer-side and planner-side candidates, since few people carry both titles at once | Sourcing that filters only on the exact title "buyer/planner" misses strong candidates from either adjacent seat |
| Test both halves of the job | A scenario on expediting a late supplier alongside a scenario on setting a reorder point | Interviews that only cover negotiation never catch a candidate who cannot run the material plan |
| Close against the right pay band | An offer near the $100,820 upper quartile for candidates who genuinely clear both halves | An offer anchored to the $77,710 median loses the dual-skill candidate to a company paying for both halves |
BEG bills as each of these stages closes, so the extra work of testing both the buying half and the planning half of this seat is priced into the milestone structure, not left for the hiring manager to do alone.
Milestone Billing Against Contingency
A contingency firm working off the $77,710 buyer and purchasing agent median would bill $15,542 to $19,428; working off the $82,320 logistician figure, a common secondary benchmark for the planning-heavy half of this seat, the bill runs $16,464 to $20,580 source. The Tier II fee this search runs on, $9,381 to $11,257, is 57 to 72 percent of either number.
What the Gap Means for a Dual-Scope Seat
Because this seat is priced to draw from two candidate pools at once, the recruiting cost matters more here than on a single-scope search: a company paying full contingency on top of a posting that only tests one half of the job pays twice for the same mistake, once in fee and once in a bad hire. BEG’s fee stays fixed to the tier regardless of which pool the eventual hire comes from.
Placement Models
A buyer/planner is a permanent seat that owns a recurring material plan, so the real choice is how the search gets billed, not whether the seat is permanent. Short-term expediting help during a launch is a staffing agency question instead.
| Model | Who employs | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEG direct hire placement | Your company takes the buyer/planner on directly | A staged Tier II fee, $9,381 to $11,257, released across the dual-scope search rather than in one invoice | You are filling a permanent buyer/planner seat and need both the negotiation half and the planning half verified |
| Contingency search firm | Your company again; only the fee mechanics differ | One 20 to 25 percent of salary invoice, billed at signing | You can already screen both halves of the dual scope in house and mainly want a wider pool of candidates |
| Staffing or temp agency | The agency remains the employer and invoices you a rate | An hourly or weekly bill rate for the length of the assignment | You need short-term expediting help during a product launch or supplier transition, not a permanent hire |
See how this dual-scope tier compares to the single-scope Procurement Specialist seat, or view the full fee ladder on the Supply Chain hub.
FAQ
BEG targets 23 to 35 days, though this seat often runs toward the longer end of that range because the search has to clear both the buying half and the planning half of the job.
BEG’s milestone fee for this Tier II search runs $9,381 to $11,257, billed across the search rather than in one invoice at signing.
Part 1 covers the supply chain overview, demand management fundamentals, supply planning, execution, inventory management, and continuous improvement. Part 2 covers strategy, sales and operations planning, demand, supply, inventory, detailed schedules, and distribution. Both must be passed within three years of each other.
The seat is written as both a buyer and a planner, and the candidates who have genuinely done both in the company’s ERP are paid near the $100,820 upper quartile, so a posting at the $77,710 median only draws people who can do half the job.
A buyer/planner owns purchase orders and the material plan for assigned parts: reorder points, supplier dates, expedites, and inventory. A procurement specialist owns sourcing events and supplier contracts for assigned categories instead, without the day to day purchase order flow.
BLS put the May 2025 range at a $48,380 10th percentile, $60,800 25th percentile, $77,710 median, $100,820 75th percentile, and $128,870 90th percentile across 491,430 jobs.
A staffing agency remains the employer and bills a rate for the assignment length, which fits short-term expediting coverage. A buyer/planner is a permanent seat with a recurring material plan, so BEG places it directly on milestone billing.
A buyer/planner owns purchase orders and reorder points for assigned parts. A demand planner owns the forecast itself, the statistical baseline and consensus number that feeds the supply plan a buyer/planner then executes against.
BLS projects the combined buyers and purchasing agents code growing 6 percent, from 516,100 jobs in 2025 to 547,000 by 2035, with roughly 53,600 openings a year across the wider purchasing group.
BLS notes organizations continue to automate some procurement tasks and integrate AI into the work, which shifts the seat further toward exception handling and supplier relationships and away from routine order entry.
See the adjacent Procurement Specialist and Demand Planner seats, or view every supply chain role on the hub.
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