Best Jobs For Former Operations Managers [2023]

It’s tough to be a operations manager nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a operations manager isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become operations managers in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many operations managers no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former operations managers to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Best Jobs For Former OPERATIONS MANAGERS

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former OPERATIONS MANAGERS

Rank	Job Title	%
1	General Manager	2.34%
2	Project Manager	1.61%
3	Operations Director	1.34%
4	Store Manager	1.34%
5	Manager	1.17%
6	Owner	0.83%
7	Office Manager	0.8%
8	Plant Manager	0.78%
9	Program Manager	0.77%
10	Consultant	0.73%
11	Account Manager	0.7%
12	Vice President	0.61%
13	Customer Service Representative	0.61%
14	Assistant Manager	0.59%
15	Operation Supervisor	0.55%
16	Sales Manager	0.51%
17	Senior Project Manager	0.49%
18	Production Manager	0.49%
19	Senior Manager	0.49%
20	Sales Representative	0.48%
21	Administrative Assistant	0.48%
22	Warehouse Manager	0.45%
23	Owner/operator	0.45%
24	Service Manager	0.44%
25	Supervisor	0.42%
26	Sales Associate	0.42%
27	Human Resources Manager	0.42%
28	Director	0.42%
29	Senior Operations Manager	0.39%
30	President Of Operations	0.38%
31	Account Executive	0.37%
32	Team Leader	0.36%
33	Assistant Store Manager	0.35%
34	Logistics Manager	0.33%
35	Branch Manager	0.31%
36	Purchasing Manager	0.31%
37	Production Supervisor	0.31%
38	Business Analyst	0.3%
39	Human Resources Coordinator	0.29%
40	Area Manager	0.29%
41	President	0.28%
42	Supply Chain Manager	0.27%
43	District Manager	0.26%
44	Product Manager	0.25%
45	Business Development Manager	0.25%
46	Business Developer	0.24%
47	Regional Manager	0.24%
48	Assistant General Manager	0.23%
49	Site Manager	0.23%
50	Customer Service Manager	0.23%
51	Chief Operating Officer	0.23%
52	Managing Director	0.23%
53	Facilities Manager	0.22%
54	Internship	0.21%
55	Sales Consultant	0.21%
56	Substitute Teacher	0.2%
57	Driver	0.2%
58	Project Coordinator	0.19%
59	Specialist	0.19%
60	Executive Director	0.19%
61	Chief Executive Officer	0.18%
62	Business Manager	0.18%
63	Property Manager	0.18%
64	Maintenance Manager	0.18%
65	Controller	0.18%
66	President/owner	0.18%
67	Material Manager	0.17%
68	Technician	0.17%
69	Department Manager	0.17%
70	Regional Operation Manager	0.17%
71	Owner/manager	0.17%
72	Executive Assistant	0.17%
73	Security Officer	0.17%
74	Quality Assurance Manager	0.17%
75	Associate	0.17%
76	Distribution Manager	0.17%
77	Manufacturing Manager	0.16%
78	Transportation Manager	0.16%
79	Assistant Vice President	0.16%
80	Marketing Manager	0.16%
81	Principal	0.16%
82	Analyst	0.16%
83	Terminal Manager	0.16%
84	Construction Manager	0.16%
85	Information Technology Project Manager	0.16%
86	Quality Manager	0.15%
87	Administrator	0.15%
88	Buyer	0.15%
89	Engineering Manager	0.15%
90	Recruiter	0.15%
91	Senior Consultant	0.15%
92	Warehouse Supervisor	0.15%
93	Accounting Manager	0.14%
94	Volunteer	0.14%
95	Superintendent	0.14%
96	Server	0.14%
97	Information Technology Manager	0.14%
98	Systems Administrator	0.14%
99	Management Consultant	0.13%
100	Safety Manager	0.13%

Most Common Jobs For Former OPERATIONS MANAGERS

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a operations manager would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former operations managers to do.

How We Determined the Best Jobs of Former OPERATIONS MANAGERS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed operations manager under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a operations manager, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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