Operations professionals need to be able to show their value in an interview. This is the one tip recruiters who specialize in placing operations professionals keep coming back to. “For anyone on the operations side of things, in today’s market especially, you have to show the value. You have to show that your role has impacted the business in a broader scope. The most successful candidates understand the full scheme of things; your ability to communicate this is critical,” said Ronald Parks, managing director at eConsult America in Minneapolis.

Furthermore, few interviewers are going to let you off with general responses.

“I want to know if they’re qualified,” said Frank Laux, president of Strategic Search Partners in Keller, Texas, “and I am going to ask them specifics, like what kind of cost-reduction work they have done, their spend-level responsibility, and how they achieved these results.” A candidate for operations jobs, especially a more established candidate, should expect to be asked what commodities they’re in charge of now and how big their spend responsibility is, and they should be able to give examples of how they have reduced costs and improved productivity — be specific and list examples.