Companies spend millions on procurement technology and walk away with almost nothing to show for it. Not because the tech failed, but because nobody planned for the hard part.

The hard part is the people.

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, host Friddy sits down with Amanda Prochaska, Founder and Chief Wonder Officer at Wonder Services, who left her dream job at MGM Resorts to fix one of procurement's most persistent problems: digital transformations that look great on paper and fall apart in practice.

Amanda makes a sharp case for why most failed implementations have nothing to do with the software, what agentic AI actually changes about adoption, and why the entry-level role decisions companies are making right now could quietly hollow out the next generation of procurement leadership.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Welcome to Procurement Pulse

00:48 From "who doesn't like buying things?" to procurement transformation

02:57 The digital implementation trap most CPOs don't see coming

05:23 What an SI told Amanda that changed everything

09:10 Why agentic AI might finally solve the adoption problem

11:07 The entry-level role question keeping Amanda up at night

13:27 Replace headcount or unlock capacity? The fork in the road ahead

18:10 Why vendor relationships matter more than category expertise now

24:51 The soft skills that will outlast every wave of automation

29:16 Full-time vs. contract talent: what's actually shifting in the market

32:34 Where to find Amanda and Wonder Services

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles.

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

90% of Alibaba's revenue comes from supplier advertising fees. That means page one rankings are heavily influenced by who paid the most, not just who's best for your product.

Most procurement teams contact 3 to 5 suppliers before making a decision. Not because that's enough because contacting more is too time-consuming. But better pricing and better quality might be sitting with supplier #47.

Ricky Ho, Co-founder of SourceReady, explains how AI changes sourcing. His platform has indexed 1.4M suppliers using customs data from 80 countries, including factories with no website or online presence. Instead of manually messaging 5 suppliers, their AI contacts 50 or 100 simultaneously, collects responses, and ranks suppliers by match quality rather than ad spend.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why Alibaba's page one is dominated by who paid most

01:59 How to find 1.4 million suppliers invisible on directories

03:55 The AI tool that contacts 100 suppliers automatically

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave

Connect with Ricky | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-ho-a25a05104/

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles.

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

Hundreds of applications. Zero callbacks. That's the reality for a lot of senior professionals right now. And it's not because they're underqualified.

The job market has quietly shifted. More competition, more AI-generated resumes flooding the same roles, and a hiring system that was built to process candidates, not advocate for them. Something had to give.

So what does it look like when the entire model gets flipped on its head?

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, Friddy sits down with Adam Feinberg, founder of My Personal Recruiter, to unpack what reverse recruiting actually is, why it's gaining traction right now, and what it reveals about the state of hiring in 2026.

Friddy and Adam get into how the traditional recruiting model has always served the employer and left job seekers to navigate a system stacked against them. They also tackle the AI question nobody is asking out loud: as more candidates use AI to bulk-apply and auto-generate resumes, does any of it even matter anymore? And if everyone looks great on paper, what actually separates the people who get hired?

Friddy also makes a prediction about where AI in recruiting is ultimately headed that stopped Adam in his tracks.

What We Discuss:

00:00 What reverse recruiting is and why it didn't exist before

03:03 How the job search actually works when someone else is running it for you

06:11 Who the job market is hardest on right now and why

10:08 The AI resume arms race and why it may be backfiring on candidates

14:53 Friddy's counterintuitive prediction: AI will matter less, not more

23:38 What happens to entry-level jobs and the leaders who were supposed to come from them

30:32 Where the job market goes from here

Interested in My Personal Recruiter? Use code SCOPE10 for 10% off.

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave

Connect with Adam | https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-fineberg/

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles.

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.