Pursuit Specialist, Corporate Services
Application Deadline: OPEN
Position Status: Full-Time, Permanent
Position Type: Existing Vacancy
Estimated Start Date: November 2026
Compensation: $70,000 - $100,000
Hours of Work: Based on 40 hours per week
Work Location: Peterborough, Ontario
Hiring Contact
For questions about this position or the recruitment process, please contact:
Dakotah Herron, Human Resources Business Partner
Email: [email protected]
Are you a strategic, collaborative, and highly organized professional who enjoys turning client insight and opportunities into winning strategies? The Pursuit Specialist is a high-impact role focused on strengthening how Wills identifies, develops, and pursues opportunities. You will bring together market intelligence, client insight, strategic thinking, persuasive communication, and disciplined pursuit management to position Wills for success and increase our win probability.
Working closely with leaders, Client Managers, Proposal Leads, and technical teams across the organization, you will help shape pursuit strategies, develop compelling proposals, prepare client presentations, and continuously improve how we approach business development. This role is ideal for someone who can see both the big picture and the details, confidently influence without direct authority, and bring people together around a shared strategy. You will have a meaningful opportunity to strengthen client relationships, advance the One Wills approach, and contribute directly to Wills’ sustainable growth.
Key Responsibilities:
Pursuit Planning & Opportunity Strategy
- Lead and facilitate the Triage process, assessing opportunities using client, market, competitor, and organizational insights to support qualification, prioritization, and Go/No-Go decisions.
- Facilitate pursuit planning to develop strategies, win themes, client-focused value propositions, and competitive differentiators.
- Evaluate RFP/RFQs and procurement requirements to identify client priorities, evaluation criteria, risks, compliance requirements, and proposal needs.
- Apply professional services business development expertise across engineering, planning, environmental, construction, or related consulting sectors.
- Demonstrate familiarity with municipal, provincial, and private-sector pursuits and procurement processes.
Marketing
- Conduct market, sector, geographic, and client research to identify prospective clients, emerging needs, procurement trends, and future opportunities.
- Evaluate and prioritize target clients, markets, and service opportunities based on strategic priorities, organizational capabilities, and growth potential.
- Build and apply client and market intelligence to identify decision-makers, understand client needs, competitors, relationships, and barriers to entry.
- Use market insights to inform client and market development strategies and prioritize business development resources ahead of formal procurement.
Sales
- Develop client- and opportunity-specific sales and capture strategies aligned with client needs, relationships, competitive positioning, and Wills’ capabilities.
- Build and strengthen client relationships through purposeful engagement that demonstrates value, influences needs, and creates opportunities ahead of formal procurement.
- Assess client priorities, decision-making dynamics, relationship progress, and opportunity risks to inform positioning and next steps.
- Advance qualified opportunities through strategic engagement and influence, sharing relevant client and market intelligence to support Triage, Go/No-Go decisions, and proposal development.
Proposal Planning & Project Coordination
- Lead proposal planning and kickoff activities, establishing outlines, schedules, responsibilities, review timelines, and submission requirements.
- Coordinate pursuit activities across internal teams to maintain alignment, accountability, and timely delivery.
- Manage multiple priorities, contributors, deadlines, and changing RFP/RFQ requirements while maintaining proposal quality and submission readiness.
- Monitor progress and review gates, proactively identifying and addressing schedule, compliance, content, and quality risks.
Proposal Writing & Strategic Communication
- Develop, write, edit, and integrate compelling, client-focused proposal content that is clear, persuasive, compliant, and aligned with Wills’ standards.
- Translate complex technical information into clear, value-driven language that effectively communicates Wills’ approach, expertise, and differentiators.
- Collaborate with technical teams to develop executive summaries, project approaches, team profiles, project experience, cover letters, and other pursuit materials.
- Apply sound judgment and constructive challenge to strengthen messaging, address gaps, and enhance proposal competitiveness.
Client Presentation & Interview Excellence
- Support client presentations and shortlisted interviews through strategic messaging, presentation planning, coaching, and rehearsal.
- Facilitate alignment across presentation teams to ensure clear roles, consistent messaging, and compelling differentiators.
- Strengthen client engagement and pursuit outcomes through concise, focused, and persuasive presentations aligned with client priorities and evaluation criteria.
Knowledge Management & Content Development
- Maintain and enhance proposal content, resources, and reusable pursuit assets to support efficient, high-quality submissions.
- Collaborate with internal teams to ensure proposal content, branding, document quality, and submission materials are consistent and ready for use.
- Promote effective knowledge management by leveraging digital tools and identifying opportunities to standardize, improve, and expand reusable content and best practices.
Performance Measurement & Continuous Improvement
- Monitor pursuit performance, pipeline activity, KPIs, and proposal outcomes to support informed business development decisions.
- Lead win/loss, Triage, and Go/No-Go debriefs to identify lessons learned, trends, and opportunities to strengthen pursuit practices and competitiveness.
- Use data, reporting, and client feedback to drive continuous improvement in pursuit selection, proposal quality, efficiency, and outcomes.
Collaboration, Coaching & Relationship Building
- Build collaborative relationships across Practice Areas, Proposal Leads, Project Leads, Client Managers, technical teams, and support functions to strengthen pursuit execution and advance the One Wills approach.
- Provide coaching, guidance, and expertise to improve proposal quality, consistency, persuasive writing, and pursuit practices.
- Foster collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and continuous improvement while influencing outcomes across diverse teams and competing priorities.
Qualifications and Experience
- 4-year degree in marketing, communications, business, planning, engineering, technology, English or related field or equivalent experience.
- Minimum 5 years of proposal, pursuit, marketing, communications, or business development experience in architecture, engineering, environmental, planning, and construction consulting industry.
- Excellent writing, editing, organizing and facilitation skills.
- Ability to understand technical input and convert it into clear client-facing language.
- Experience working with multiple deadlines, contributors, reviewers and changing RFP/RFQ requirements.
- Experience with proposal schedules, compliance matrices, review gates, pipeline tools, document control and content libraries.
- Advanced judgement, attention to detail and ability to challenge weak assumptions constructively.
- Knowledge of municipal, provincial, and private-sector pursuits is an asset.
- Significant experience with Microsoft suite of tools, project management software and Adobe.
Work Culture
At Wills, we build partnerships with our team members, clients and community rooted in respect and fostered through a work environment that is committed to supporting, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion that respects people’s dignity, ideas, and beliefs.
We value smart work and promote work-life balance for employees through our flexible work options. We also provide a social and professional work environment that supports personal and professional goals for all team members. We are socially conscious and strive to make a difference in the communities where we live and work.
Why this Job Matters
At Wills, sustainable growth is built through strong client relationships, thoughtful strategy, and a consistent One Wills approach. As the Pursuit Specialist, you will play a key role in turning opportunities into successful pursuits by bringing together market intelligence, client insight, strategic positioning, and compelling proposals.
Your work will directly influence how we identify and prioritize opportunities, understand client needs, differentiate Wills, and position our teams for success. Working closely with Division leadership, Practice Area Leads, Client Managers, Proposal Leads, and technical teams, you will help ensure our pursuits are focused, competitive, and aligned with both client priorities and Wills’ capabilities.
Beyond individual pursuits, you will help strengthen how Wills approaches business development – building knowledge, improving processes, sharing best practices, and driving continuous improvement. Through this work, you will contribute to increasing our win probability, strengthening our pipeline, and supporting sustainable growth across Wills and the communities we serve.
What You Will Gain
As the Pursuit Specialist, you will have the opportunity to work across Wills, partnering with leaders, client managers, proposal professionals, and technical teams to gain broad exposure to our clients, markets, services, and growth strategies. This role offers the opportunity to build expertise in strategic pursuits, capture planning, proposal development, business development, market intelligence, and client engagement while seeing the direct impact of your work on Wills’ growth.
You will also have the opportunity to shape and improve how Wills approaches pursuits by developing best practices, strengthening knowledge resources, and contributing to a more consistent One Wills approach. For someone who enjoys strategic thinking, collaboration, persuasive communication, and turning insight into action, this role provides meaningful opportunities to grow your expertise and influence across the organization.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
In accordance with Ontario legislation, applicants are advised that artificial intelligence may be used to support aspects of the recruitment process, such as application screening or scheduling.
Wills offers a competitive compensation package with comprehensive benefits and merit-based bonuses for performance and tenure.
If you are a goal oriented, initiative-taking individual who is looking to join a successful team, Wills is interested in speaking with you. Please submit your resume and cover letter.
We sincerely thank all candidates for their interest, however, please note that only those applicants selected for further consideration will be contacted. If selected for an interview, please advise us if you require accommodation.
