Pursuit Specialist

Note: Please only submit your application for consideration by visiting our Careers page. 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.

The Pursuit Specialist leads the identification and development of business opportunities through strategic pursuit planning and the creation of compelling, client-focused proposals. They collaborate with technical teams to translate complex information into value-driven language and manage the end-to-end proposal process from triage to client presentations.

Requires a 4-year degree in a relevant field and at least 5 years of experience in proposal or business development within the AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) consulting industry. Candidates must possess excellent writing and facilitation skills and be proficient in Microsoft and Adobe tools.

• Project managementPreferred

Identified from the job description. Confirm important requirements above.

• Pursuit Planning
• Proposal Writing
• Market Research
• Strategic Communication
• Client Relationship Management
• Capture Strategy
• Project Coordination
• Competitive Analysis
• Facilitation
• Editing
• Knowledge Management
• KPI Monitoring
• Microsoft Office Suite
• Adobe
• Project Management Software
• Business Development

• Consulting
• Marketing
• Sales
• Engineering
• Construction

Minimum education

Bachelor’s degree

Minimum experience

5+ years

Apply by

Sep 18, 2026

Posting language

English

Working hours

40 hours per week

Seniority

Mid-Senior level