Operations managers play a key part in ensuring seamless operation for company procedures. Typically, they serve as a part of the management team and oversee HR activities, including recruiting, hiring, and training talent. In addition, they regularly analyze day-to-day activities and find ways to improve overall productivity and quality. That being said, finding a qualified operations manager is no easy task.
Look for candidates with strong experience and knowledge of operational management duties. Since they are responsible for overseeing human resources, logistics, and budget planning, your ideal candidate should be able to find solutions for any problems quickly and efficiently.
To help you out with the hiring process, we’ve compiled and tailored the best operations manager interview questions to ask.
Best operations manager interview questions to ask
As you analyze current processes, what information do you look at? How do you identify problems and solutions?
We love this question because it provides great insight into a candidate’s thought process. What factors do they look into before making an action plan? What steps would they take to make a current process more productive and cost-effective? In the long run, their answers to this question will demonstrate how they evaluate and identify solutions.
How have your ideas improved operations at previous companies?
This question gives applicants the opportunity to show how their work positively impacted previous companies they worked at. What meaningful changes have they implemented? Did they streamline the employee training process or make advantageous budget cuts? Overall, this is their opportunity for them to show past results and what they can potentially do for your company.
How do you handle employees that resist change?
Due to the nature of the operations manager job, they will be consistently testing and implementing new changes to try to improve the workplace. These changes may not always be welcomed and there will most likely be some resistance towards new policies. A great operations manager should have the interpersonal skills to work past these issues and consider employee feedback
How do you ensure quality as efficiency and productivity increase?
It’s an operations manager’s job to try to increase efficiency and productivity for daily activities and business processes. However, during these transitions, a loss of quality in the content of work produced can occur. Listen carefully to the candidate’s response on how they remain detail-oriented and consistent when making company changes.
What is your management style? Describe it.
How does your candidate prefer to manage and motivate their team? Does it align with your company culture? In brief, if their management style could conflict with the current company culture, it may be a signal that they are a bad hire. For this reason, this is a good time to ask about how they handle tough team members, motivate their workers, and delegate responsibilities.
Have you handled Management Information Systems or Cost/Variance Analysis?
For most operation managers, they will be using various information databases and regularly conduct a variety of analyses for the company. Does this candidate have experience in the different cost analysis techniques your firm likes to use? Do they have experience working with Management Information Systems? All in all, it’s crucial to get an idea of their previous technical skills for success on the job.
Find your ideal operations manager
We hope these operations manager interview questions were helpful! If you want to skip the laborious and long hiring process, partner with TruPath. With nearly 17,000 roles filled since inception, TruPath prioritizes looking past the resume to find candidates that will culturally align with your organization. Their experience with finding high-caliber talent is guaranteed to take your company to the next level.