Contract Proposal Manager Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

The Proposal Manager is responsible for leading all proposal preparation, development, coordination, and production activities. The Proposal Manager will also assist in developing opportunity planning and capture actions. The successful candidate will lead teams consisting of consultants, subcontractors and SMEs through the opportunity lifecycle. This role requires a seasoned leader with excellent communication skills, and who has a deep understanding of how to effectively develop and manage a winning federal proposal team.

Job Responsibilities:

• Oversee proposal development to ensure the critical strategic messages are embodied in the proposal and that the win strategy is evident in the final product to maximize probability of win.
• Ensure that the proper resources are available to deliver a compliant, complete proposal on time and within budget.
• Organize strategy meetings to establish win themes
• Conduct formal management reviews (red/pink/gold, etc.), including the collection and distribution of comments.
• Assist management in competitive analysis and solution strategy.
• Organize, schedule, and conduct proposal kick-off meeting for all participants.
  • Summarize RFP requirements and ensure all participants have most current information
  • Develop win themes and team differentiators for emphasis across all proposal volumes
  • Establish method for proposal team communication (e.g. posting changes to solicitations, responses to Q&A, sharing of drafts, etc.)
  • Establish proposal master schedule
  • Establish formatted volume templates and provide to volume managers
• Manage overall proposal efforts to include:
  • Coordinate posting and integration of draft proposal deliverables
  • Translate bid strategies into proposal narrative
  • Develop detailed proposal schedules, milestones, and plans and manage all proposal activities required to meet them
  • Monitor and enforce milestones
  • Administer writing assignments
  • Oversee volume outlines
  • Coordinate appropriate review/approval
  • Develop value proposition creation, and
  • Write or revise proposal content to achieve target message throughout the proposal
  • Manage and effectively interact with a wide diversity of people and technical disciplines in a high-pressure work environment

Skills:

• Must have proven history of proposal successes in the Federal market.
• Proven experience and success in managing pursuit deal sizes from $10M – $50M.
• Must have a strong knowledge of business practices.
• Must possess a successful track record of wins leading complex bid opportunities.
• Must be comfortable and flexible in unstructured situations; at ease with senior executives internal and external to the company.
• Must have a thorough understanding of federal contract proposal efforts, documentation, procurement process, proposal preparation, evaluation, and compliance auditing.
• Experience working with management for initial opportunity identification and development of the capture strategy, through the final proposal team lessons learned debriefing.
• Must be familiar with the federal procurement lifecycle from development of requirements through award of contracts and must demonstrate a thorough and detailed understanding of the Government acquisition and source selection process.
• Must have a working knowledge of the current Federal Acquisition Regulations and all its subsidiaries (DFAR, AFAR, GFAR, etc.) and the ability to read and interpret government synopsis, Requests for Proposal (RFP), Requests for Quote (RFQ), Request for Information (RFI) and solicitations.
• Must be an accomplished writer with in-depth experience creating proposal related documents; i.e. proposal directives, executive summaries, compliance matrixes, proposal outlines, proposal related customer questions, storyboards, color review documents, finalized proposal documents, oral presentations, and lessons learned.
• Must have superior communication and facilitation skills, with the proven ability to manage a large diverse team of technical and management personnel.
• Must have experience with Government proposal preparation and processes.
• Ability to work independently on assigned tasks, as well as, accept direction on given assignments.

Educational Requirements:

Bachelor's degree in a technical field is required. Eight (8) years of experience may be substituted for the degree.

Experience:

A minimum of five (5) years of progressive experience in a fast-paced high volume proposal environment as Manager leading teams with at least one major (>$20M) successful opportunity (Greater than >$50M opportunity preferred).

Other Requirements:

• Must be a U.S. citizen.
• Be able to obtain and maintain a government security clearance.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Visio.
• Familiar with collaboration tools such as Microsoft TEAMS.
• Familiar with web-based Customer Resource Management (CRM) tools.
• Must possess strong negotiation and interpersonal skills and the ability to work with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
• Willingness and ability to work long hours when required.
• Exceptional organizational skills.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills.
• Top Secret Clearance Preferred