Michael Bell ⋅ Atlanta, GA U.S. Army Reserve, Captain ⋅ 26 years served

Again guys, thank you so much for your answers. It's hard transferring what you did in the military into corporate equivalents. For example, currently, I am an Assistant Operations officer for my 80 person Battalion. I write the training schedule four months in advance. I coordinate training sites. I will visit the sites to male last minute coordination as far as housing for the troops, equipment needed, training areas. make sure the landholders know we are coming. I brief my commander on what is going on operationally. I lead with the other department leaders the yearly training calendar. I evaluate the people who will be doing the training to make sure they know what they are doing and doing it to our standards.
Now, is this similar to the corporate world?

Michael Bell ⋅ Atlanta, GA U.S. Army Reserve, Captain ⋅ 26 years served

Thank you very much gentlemen for your answers. They were very helpful. Joe, first of all, I am NOT active duty. I am a regular Reservist. In my unit I am the Assistant Operations officer and don't believe those commercials. When you have this type of responsibility, it isn't just one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. I an doing military stuff at least 10 hours a week.
And Jack, that goes to your point. My MOS or job is an Infantry Combat officer. I know tactics, how to raid a building, but working on the operations cell for the last four months has taught me management skills, getting resources. Advance planning. developing training. Ensuring whoever is going to train is ready by having them practice in front of me before they go before my boss. I go to training areas (in and out of state) to check them out and reserve space months before my unit actually gets there. I make sure the yearly training calendar is planned out. I enjoy this work. I have my finger on everything. I know almost as much as the commander. I like making things happens and making sure they happen correctly.

Jack Duich ⋅ Myakka City, FL GKN Aerospace Special Products Group ⋅ 31 years experience

Both Joe & Richard explain it well. I'll just add a comment on scale. Ops managers typically are roles sized in service and manufacturing businesses with responsibility for a handful to 20 people or so, performing what ever function the business supports - anything from a carpet cleaning franchise to a small component manufacturer producing high tech devices. All involve people management, customer care (internal or external), cost management, and basically serving as the obstacle remover / problem solver who owns the success of their mission.

As the roles are scaled, the titles typically scale - Director of Operations then VP of Operations. At those levels scope is expanded to encompass broader business strategy involvement, and deeper participation with Sales and Product development. Its also at these levels that titles can be used interchangeably - VPs of OS can also be general Managers or even quasi-COOs with multiple site responsibility..

Your interest & education define the industries within which you can best participate. Your leadership & hands-on business experience helps define the appropriate scale of your role.

Richard Stamets ⋅ Skillman, NJ AIG ⋅ 25 years experience

Michael --

To Joe's point, the title Operations Manager has a very broad definition. In the Financial Services Industry, like insurance, operations blends an understanding of tech systems, personnel, business process and strategies to achieve business goals. So, it's difficult to pin down one definition of Operations Manager. Many companies have web-sites that allow you to search on the type of job's offered, including the preferred experience. You may want to spend time on companies web-site career sections to give you some additional perspective.

I would suggest you determine a somewaht defined number of industries you're interested in and reach out to folks in that particular industry to give you additional insight. If I can be of any further help, please feel free to reach out to me.

Joe Paschall ⋅ Madison, AL nLogic, LLC ⋅ 26 years experience

Michael, hopefully you have a year or more to do some Transition Planning because these are questions best considered 2-3 years out to enable time to prepare. The term "Operations Manager" is a very broad term that is not very helpful in defining anything. It is like saying "I am interested in being an O-3" but not having the service, MOS or billet defined, much less knowing if you had the right match of MOS/experience. The Ops Mgr title applies to folks serving as supervisors in manufacturing/production facilities and it applies to folks who are serving as VPs managing the business functions of a company. Outside of having a great networking or family connection that is looking to help you out by creating a job for you, these positions always require experience in the specific industry (manufacturing, production, IT) as well as the right mix of degree (BA minimum) and certifications (PMP and other industry-specific ones). The best route for you to qualify for these positions at any level would be to find an industry in which your military experience is directly relevant and then also work on the appropriate certifications. As you can tell, you would need to do a good bit of research and still have time to earn some certs and build a network to help you out. Lots of folks succeed this route coming from the military but it is not the kind of transition you can make by stretching far away from your experience base.