In order to successfully run a business, it must be managed professionally by people who know the job and have the backing of a rich experience. That is because the job demands meeting a host of crucial responsibilities ranging from communicating with clients to implementing different programs.
Therefore, a business operations manager is a crucial high post in a company to conduct its varied day-to-day functions successfully.
What does a business operation manager do?
Here are some primary responsibilities of a typical business operation manager:
- The manager makes sure that different departments of a company jell well and work together to achieve business goals.
- Bring a company’s operational strategies every time to the notice of the stakeholders
- Keep a tab on the quality of the production output
- Does everything to build an environment for innovation
- Defines different financial figures
- Manages budget
- Makes sure that employees get required training
Are you a business operation manager material?
If someone has a talent for a job, then that person can do that work with interest and get the desired results. So, are you naturally inclined to do the job of an operational business manager? Well, here are some typical signs that you are born with the qualities to perform the duties. Ask these questions to pinpoint a potential candidate for the job:
Do you have the zeal to do different tasks?
Usually, most of us hate it when we have to do a couple of jobs at one time. Maybe it is due to our lack of ability to focus when given the responsibilityto multitask. But if you feel proud of taking up different jobs and have the zeal to accomplish your goals, you are a perfect candidate for being a personal business manager.
Know that business operations involve doing a lot of jobs such as management of vendors, logistics, budget, and many more. So, if you still have energy left after daily monitoring of these tasks, you are interested in a business operation manager.
Can you easily handle the pressure?
When you need to perform multiple tasks simultaneously successfully, it leads to the building of pressure, which, in turn, may lead to other personal and professional issues. But, in case you can deal with the mounting pressure effectively, it is a hallmark of a successful business operation manager. Moreover, you can handle the pressure because you love multitasking and take pride in it as well.
Are you a good communicator?
A business operations manager has to meet with clients and different team members and convince them to do a job in a certain way. But that is not an easy job for everyone to do successfully.
Besides the in-house members working on a project, the manager also keeps excellent relations with high-profile clients and department heads.
Do you have the right skills to lead?
Not everyone has leadership skills. So, evaluate your personality to find out if you like to lead and then have the skills to lead hundreds of people in an organization. Then, as a leader of our business, you must take the initiative to start something new.
You should be able to give direction and guidance to your organization and take responsibility to conduct every other function of your company’s departments.
Do you like to maintain quality?
What is your reaction when seeing something that does not come true on quality parameters? Are you annoyed and looking for ways to improve the quality, or do you just ignore it? Well, if you just hate anything that does not meet quality standards, then you are the right candidate to be a successful business operations manager.
In the modern competitive markets, you cannot survive for long with low-quality products or services. So, the manager has to put in place a system and maintain it to ensure high-quality standards all the time.
Do you take pride in solving problems?
Another trait of a successful business operations manager is to have a liking for resolving the issues. So many people just run away when faced with a problem, but the manager will love to get in the thick of the matter and ultimately solve the issue.
The manager will readily come to the rescue of the team members when they need authority to settle the matter. But business operations managers are also supposed to have good analytical skills to know the root cause of a conflict and give an effective solution. So, you must also have an aptitude for critical thinking.
Why should you aspire to be a business operations manager?
Now that you know that you have the right temperament and skills to be a business operations manager, find out why you should go for this job. Once you know that, you will surely dream of occupying one such responsibility in a big organization. But even if you join a small company, you still enjoy several perks.
Here we give you some of the reasons to pursue a career as a business operations manager:
You are at the helm of affairs.
As a business operations manager, you will enjoy the status of a boss since yours will be the last word to settle an issue or when you need to guide your team. You will handle a team comprising several groups, making it a demanding job that you will enjoy. In addition, there is a lot of reputation and recognition involved in being the boss of what you do in the company.
Get an attractive salary.
Since you hold crucial responsibilities of successfully running a company’s business, the company handsomely rewards you for the job. As a result, business operations managers are among the few positions with competitive salaries and perks. The US’s average business operations manager salary is $106,933, and the pay may go much higher in top cities.
Build relationships
The job gives you many opportunities to come across professionals from different industries and parts of the world. You can maintain a great relationship with them, and they can be of great use to you in shaping your career and life in many ways. It’s just like a logo generator that communicates with the audience and fosters a relationship. Being an operations manager, you work in the same way.
You will always be in demand
Most companies need someone to manage their day-to-day activities of business efficiently to achieve their goals. That means that even a small business should hire a manager for steady growth. Therefore, you will always be in demand from even big companies depending on your skills and experience.
What set of skills do you need to be a business operations manager?
Business operations management is not an easy job to do as it is laden with the responsibilities of running a business successfully. You are not just managing a business but taking it forward in a competitive world. So, make sure that you equip yourself with some key skills.
Here are the skills required:
Management skills
The first and foremost skill you need is to manage the entire workforce at your disposal efficiently. You must be well-versed in dealing with different teams and members to extract the best out of them, and that is the way to realize your business goals.
IT skills
In the modern digital world, your high IT skills are crucial to doing your job to the best of your ability. There are several IT systems that a business operations manager should know about so that it is much easier to work together with your team for better productivity.
Critical thinking skills
Management of a business requires you to make vital decisions that can make or break a company. Conversely, a wrong decision can severely jeopardize a company’s growth prospects. But with your ability to analyze a situation to see the problem, you can come up with the right solution.
So, a clear understanding of the issues your team and business are facing is in itself a skill, and then resolving it ideally is possible due to critical thinking ability.
Professional skills
You will not be just a business operations manager, but you will also report the issues and how you intend to resolve them to your seniors. You should also come up with unique concepts that can change the course of a company’s business. Also, you must have those skills to encourage team members to take up a project with zeal.
Communication skills
A business operations manager should communicate with several team members, clients, and other people daily. So, you need to show your skills to share with all sections of people in an organization and outside of it.
Ability to work with a team
Another skill that you must possess is working with your team actively. Being the manager, you should listen to your team members and resolve any problem they confront. You can do that only when your unit trusts you and shares your thoughts at any time. So, you must go along with them very well. You should also give them a support system.
Should be able to take the stress
The managerial job is full of stress as you have to deal with many issues daily and run around to meet clients. Then, you apply your mind and talk to your team. Sometimes, thongs go as per your plan, and that could add pressure and stress. Such a responsibility requires you to keep calm and still come up with the right solutions to the problems at hand.
What educational degrees are required to be an operational business manager?
You are directly competing with many professionals who have experience running a business successfully in the job market. So, if you have a formal university degree and certificate courses, companies find you a valuable candidate to hire.
These are degrees as a qualification for a business operations manager.
Bachelor’s degree related to the management
Those who aspire to be business operations managers should have a bachelor’s degree in business administration or related management programs. Under these courses, a student gets an education on leadership skills and organizational management. You will also know about the different financial and technical backgrounds of a business. So, you should go for one of these degrees.
- Business Administration
- Business Management
- Accounting
- Economics
Master’s degree
Though a master’s degree is not a condition set by companies to hire a business operations manager, your chances of getting hired are still up with this degree. Many companies will prefer a candidate with a master’s degree to one without it. You can also opt for other graduate programs that add your knowledge of business operations.
Some initial working-experience
Before applying for a business operations manager post, it would be good to have some working experience. For instance, you can start working as an operation supervisor with a company, and then you can steadily climb up the ladder to finally become the manager. In this way, you will have practical knowledge and skills to do the job.
Voluntary certification.
You should also consider getting a voluntary certification, which shows a candidate’s competency in a given field. Some professional associations, such as the Institute of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM), issue these certifications. Know that some companies hire professionals based on how many points they accrue on experience and education. One such voluntary certification will help you get the job more.
Where to search for a business operations manager job?
You can now confidently apply for a business operations manager job after equipping yourself with educational degrees, certifications, and entry-level experience. However, you should also be aware of the platforms that let you know about the job opportunities.
As mentioned above, plenty of companies publish vacancies for managerial jobs, and hundreds of such employment opportunities appear daily. But you must know about those online avenues where you can find these jobs as per your qualifications and experience.
Job fairs
Instead of traveling long distances to other cities for job opportunities and interviews, how about going to one place to get interviewed by many companies? That is what happens in job fairs, also known as job career fairs. Find out one such fair in your town and then approach them for a face-to-face interview.
Job fairs are also opportunities for companies to interview as many qualified applicants and hire the best talent available in a town. So, you will find that many prominent companies are in the fair and interviewing candidates for business operations managers. Some of the companies may be willing to offer you on-the-spot employment.
There are websites which inform you about the job fairs happening in your city or around. You can look up these websites for the fairs in your town.
- Choice Career Fairs
- Coast 2 Coast Career Fairs
- Expo ExpertsJobFairsIn
- Best Hire Career Fairs
- Catalyst Career Group
- Jobertising
- JobFairX
- National Career Fairs
But make sure that you take these interviews in job fairs seriously and approach them with all the preparations you can make. Go to the website of the company to have some information about it before approaching for the interview. Take multiple copies of your resume and go well prepared.
Job listing websites
Job listing websites are among the most searched ones where job seekers regularly look for new vacancies in companies. These online job portals publish hundreds of new jobs and, therefore, you should visit them regularly until you finally get the job of your dreams.
There is a long list of such job websites, but here we give you the sites where your chances of locating your kind of business operations manager job are higher:
- Indeed
- glassdoor
- Monster
- Upwork
- Jora
- recruit.net
- WayUp
- amazon jobs
- ZipRecruiter
- adzuna
- Trovit
- CareerjetSimplyHired
- CareerBuilder
- ladders
- CareerOneStop
- HigherEdJobs
- CareerCast
- PostJobFree
- Aerotek
- juju
- Learn4Good
- flexjobs
Also, when sending an email to the companies for the job, make sure that it is in the proper format. The email subject line and the way to address the company must look professional. Most importantly, your signatures should have the correct information. It is better to get your signature from an email signature generator, which will show your name, address, phone number, etc., along with your signature.
How to prepare for a business operations manager interview?
When you finally get a call from a company for a business operations manager job interview, you should make the maximum out of it by preparing well to get hired. It would be better to prepare well by keeping some typical questions for the manager post in mind. Here are some of those questions that you should have a convincing answer to during the interview.
- How would you motivate people to accomplish project work?
- Which leadership style do you like to follow?
- What would you do to be stress-free?
- What ideas do you like to improve operations?
- What does success mean to you?
Make a list of such questions and ponder on them to get the correct answers. You should rehearse those answers so that you do not miss a crucial point during the interview.
Wrapping Up
To be a successful business operations manager, you should hold some specific skills such as managerial skills, communication skills, ability to work with teams, and zeal for coming up with the right solutions to various organizational and technological problems. You should also be armed with educational qualifications and some experience.
