In a growing company, the Operations Manager is often the person who turns the owner’s plans into a business that runs smoothly day to day. Get the hire right and work flows better every week. Get it wrong and the problems reach your customers before they reach you. Here is a simple process that works for small and mid-size employers.
1. Decide what “operations” means in your business
The title means different things in different companies. At a distributor it may mean the warehouse, purchasing and deliveries. At a service company it may mean scheduling, quality and customer service. At a construction or property business it may mean field coordination and vendors.
Write down the three to five results you expect in the first year, for example “orders ship complete and on time,” “inventory counts match the books at month end” or “the scheduling team runs without daily escalations.” Then list what this person will own, what they will share with others, and who will report to them. That one page becomes your job description, your interview guide and, later, the basis of their review.
2. Set the pay before you start
Strong operations people usually have a job and more than one option. Decide your salary range, bonus and benefits before you speak with anyone, and check the range against your local market: offers you have made recently, what similar companies nearby are advertising, and published wage data such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage tables for your area. If the right person costs more than you planned, it is far better to learn that in week one than at the offer.
3. Look beyond the job post
A posting attracts people who are actively looking. Many of the best Operations Managers are not; they are busy running someone else’s operation well. Ask your network, your vendors and your own team for referrals, and reach out directly to people doing the job at comparable companies. A recruiter can do this outreach confidentially, which matters when the person you want works for a competitor or a customer.
4. Interview for evidence, not charm
Ask every candidate the same core questions, so you compare answers rather than impressions. Ask for specific stories: “Tell me about a process you fixed. What was broken, what did you change, and how did you know it worked?” Follow up on the details: what they measured, how many people they managed, what went wrong along the way.
Add one practical exercise, such as walking through a real problem from your business together for half an hour. Then speak with references who managed the candidate directly, and ask whether they would hire this person again, and for what.
5. Make the offer quickly and plan the first 90 days
Once you have decided, move. Call with a verbal offer, follow up in writing the same day, and be ready for questions about schedule, growth and reporting lines. Before the start date, write a simple 30-60-90 day plan: who they meet in the first week, which processes they learn first, and which one or two improvements they should own by the end of the third month. A clear start is one of the best ways to keep a good hire.
Warning signs to watch for
- Answers about what “we” did, with no clear picture of the candidate’s own part
- No numbers: a strong operations person can usually tell you what they tracked and how it changed
- Every past problem blamed on other people or other departments
- Little curiosity about how your business actually works
Hiring an Operations Manager? HireUp Group recruits operations leaders for employers across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Call (845) 580-4473 or start a search, and we will talk the role through with you.
