What was my Job Title and what should I now be aiming for?

[CowCubeCowube]

Hi everyone, I've been here a long time but have name changed. I'm so sorry if this is long!

Can any of you wise and well informed people give me any ideas as to what my job title should have been and what type of job/title/level I should be aiming for now? I'm at an utter loss!

I'm mid thirties and have had a varied career - I left school at twelve and was managing my first shop at 16 and pub at 18. I remained in hospitality/retail management until my mid twenties.

I then went to work for a family friends long established haulage business...small office but tons of work. I then ran the office and then the company - this involved doing everything; planning work, budgets, quotes & tenders (large and small, from £500 to £250k, procurement, h&s, invoicing, accounts, management of the drivers, fleet management. Literally everything. I was very good at it.

I worked 7 days a week until I had my daughter (taking the grand total of 3 weeks off work) when I then switched to 5 days.

I was in this role for nearly 10 years. I have since left - needless to say I broke! I'm obviously now looking for another job but the problem is I have absolutely no idea what my job title was and what I should be aiming for now! Nor what sort of level I should be aiming for.

I have a CV - I don't think it's particularly good as I am struggling to condense it down as I don't know what my job should be.

All advice would be very, very welcome. Thankyou so much!

Office manager.

You could easily transition into project management from this.

I think Operations Manager

An office manager is more about the ongoings of the building itself, rather than the running of the business.

Commercial manager

You were a Senior Logistics Manager. Or a Senior Transport Manager. Adjust accordingly depending on what you are applying for.
I’d stay in that industry if I were you, as it’s where you’ll be able to land a well paid role.

General Manager or Commercial Manager?

But that doesn't matter if you do a skills based CV and tailor it to the jobs you are applying for

Business manager or operations manager

Thankyou so much lovely people. I was thinking either transport manager or operations manager but was unsure!

What skills do we think I need to be talking up in my CV and which are irrelevant?

Sorry!!

Now I think more about it, Supply Chain might be relevant - lots of jobs, and well paid I think at senior levels.

My recommendation is to big up and emphasise your specific skills; no point using generic terms like projects and operations. Use words like supply chain, transport, logistics, fleet, etc

An example: recruiters search for CVs using very narrow special terms. Much like us - we don’t just type “shoes” into a browser and sift through the millions of results. Be the “green velvet shoes”, not the “shoes” 🧐

@7Worfs thankyou so much! I've been really struggling with what I should even be looking for and have been applying for so many random things with my poor CV because I'm not sure what I'm actually meant to be doing (if that makes sense!)

So grateful for all input!

Honestly, I'm not dense! I haven't had a CV for nearly 15 years and things have obviously changed rather a lot since then!

Ah, you’ve forgotten how valuable your skills and experience are 😊
Take your time to hone your CV, Google Action words for CV (as opposed to passive), go to job boards and just read job ads.
After you perfect your CV upload it to job boards. Create a LinkedIn profile. Set up alerts with key words like transport, logistics, supply chain, procurement. When applying, tweak CV to include words that feature in the job ad.
Keep track of each cv you send to what company - you’ll need to remember what title you put forward when you get to interview.

Definitely operations manager. It’s much broader. And make sure you tailor your CV to match the job you’re applying for so that you emphasize the relevant bits.

General Manager or Operations Director or Head of Operations.

Although sounds like you did a chunk of commercial work too. Who pitched for new business?

You could do Ops, Commercial, project management..

Agree you need to list your skills and quantify (eg size of workforce, fleet, budget)

I'd say office manager but you have operations and project experience