Resume template · Updated October 2026
Chief operating officer resume template
Short answer
Catalyst suits a chief operating officer who is already running operations: it prints no summary, so the page opens on the current role, with plants, people and results. The fictional sample is the COO of a four-plant food manufacturer with about 1,900 employees, who raised line efficiency, improved on-time delivery to grocery customers and led a plant consolidation, after six years as vice president of operations at a snack company.
Download the chief operating officer sample
Gregory is a fictional chief operating officer. Replace every detail with your own before you send it.
The files are made in your browser by Resumity's own exporters, from this sample. The builder opens it as your own resume: click any line to replace it. Free plan, no watermark.
Why Catalyst suits a chief operating officer resume
Catalyst goes from the header straight to work experience, with no summary in between, which suits a sitting COO whose current plants, headcount and results make the case on their own. The large left-aligned name and teal headings give an executive page some weight without decoration, and projects print after skills, a natural home for multi-year programs such as a consolidation or a planning rebuild.
Second choice: Henrietta. Henrietta adds a summary paragraph and prints education straight after experience; pick it if you are stepping up from vice president of operations and need three lines to frame the move.
What goes in each section, in Catalyst's order
Catalyst prints its sections in a fixed order, the same in the PDF and the Word file. Here is that order for this sample, and what to put in each section.
- Work Experience. Open the current role with scope in one line: sites, headcount, revenue or volume, the functions that report to you and who you report to. Then the operating measures a CEO and board watch (OEE or throughput, on-time in-full, cost per unit, inventory days, recordable injury rate), each with a before and after.
- Skills. Labelled rows, printed after experience. Operating disciplines on the first row (S&OP, lean, capital planning, food safety systems, labor relations), the ERP and planning stack on Tools. At this level the job history carries the proof, so six or seven items are enough.
- Projects. Multi-year programs read better here than squeezed into a bullet: a consolidation, a new line or plant, an ERP cutover, an S&OP rebuild. Give the duration, what changed and two measured outcomes, so a board member can see you finish what you start.
- Education. Degree, school and year. An engineering or supply chain degree followed by an MBA is a common pairing for operating executives; executive programs can share the line.
The sample resume as text
The same content as the files above, so you can copy a line or compare it with your own.
Gregory Halvorsen
Chief Operating Officer, Food Manufacturing, Four Plants
Columbus, OH | gregory.halvorsen@example.com | (614) 555-0139 | linkedin.com/in/sample-gregory-halvorsen
Experience
Chief Operating Officer, Buckeye Hearth Foods, Columbus, OH (02/2021 to Present)
- Run manufacturing, supply chain, quality, engineering and safety for a $620M bakery and prepared foods maker: four plants, two distribution centers and about 1,900 employees, reporting to the CEO.
- Raised overall equipment effectiveness on the bread and bun lines from 61% to 72% through daily tier meetings and shorter changeovers.
- Cut finished goods inventory by nine days of supply while lifting on-time in-full to the three largest grocery customers from 91% to 97%.
- Halved the recordable injury rate over three years with plant safety committees and a contractor permit system.
Vice President, Operations, Bayfront Snack Company, Erie, PA (05/2015 to 01/2021)
- Led three plants making about $280M of snacks a year, plus purchasing for flour, oils and packaging.
- Delivered a $45M capital plan, including a high-speed pretzel line that opened on budget and two weeks early.
- Signed the first multi-year packaging film contracts, holding film costs flat through two years of resin price swings.
Projects
Plant network consolidation: Closed the oldest of five plants and moved its 11 production lines to two sister sites over 14 months.
- No missed customer orders during the moves
- About $14M lower annual conversion cost
- Transfer or severance offered to all 240 affected employees
Sales and operations planning rebuild: Replaced spreadsheet planning with a monthly S&OP cycle run jointly with sales and finance.
- Item-level forecast accuracy up from 68% to 80%
- One demand plan used by plants, purchasing and finance
Education
MBA, Scioto Valley University (05/2011)
BS, Industrial Engineering, Great Lakes Polytechnic University (05/2003)
Skills
Multi-plant operations, Lean manufacturing, Sales and operations planning, Capital planning, Food safety and quality systems, Labor relations, SAP S/4HANA, Kinaxis, Power BI, Coaching plant leaders, Plain reporting to the board
How to make the sample yours
Say which kind of COO you are
Some COOs run plants and supply chain; others run every function except finance and sales, or act as the CEO's second in command at a services firm. Rewrite the headline and the scope line so the reader knows which, and match it to the posting.
Translate measures for services
In healthcare, logistics or professional services, swap OEE and on-time in-full for patient throughput, utilization, service levels, margin per site or client retention.
Show how you handled people through change
Consolidations and automation touch jobs. One line on transfers, retraining or union negotiations shows the judgment a board will probe in interview.
Add integration work if you have it
If you folded acquired sites into your network, give the count, the timeline and the savings delivered against the deal model.
Name the bench you built
Plant managers you promoted, or an operations leadership team you assembled, show you can run the business without standing in every plant.
Keywords to keep where they are true
Terms this kind of resume is usually searched for. Use the posting's exact wording, and only for work you have done.
- chief operating officer
- COO
- multi-site operations
- operational excellence
- lean manufacturing
- overall equipment effectiveness
- sales and operations planning
- supply chain management
- on-time in-full
- capital expenditure
- plant consolidation
- safety performance
- P&L management
- continuous improvement
Mistakes to avoid
- A scope line without numbers; sites, headcount and revenue or volume are what place you.
- Naming every lean tool you know instead of two results they produced.
- Claiming a margin gain that also came from pricing or product mix; say what operations contributed.
- Leaving safety off a manufacturing resume when you own the recordable rate.
How the sample PDF reads in text extractors
We exported this sample with Resumity's PDF exporter in Chrome on 2026-10-29 and read the file back with three open-source text extractors. This shows whether software that turns a PDF into text can recover it; it is not a test of any commercial applicant tracking system. How we test templates.
| Extractor | Name, email, phone | Headings | Bullets intact |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdf.js 4.10.38 | All found | 4 of 4 | 12 of 12 |
| pdftotext (Xpdf) 4.00 | All found | 4 of 4 | 12 of 12 |
| pypdf 6.13.0 | All found | 4 of 4 | 12 of 12 |
Frequently asked questions
Does a COO resume need a summary?
Not in Catalyst, which prints none; the headline (title, industry, scope) and the first bullet of your current role do that job. If you are moving into your first COO seat, choose a template with a summary so you can frame the step up.
How do I show I am ready to move up from VP of operations?
Show work across the functions you would inherit: planning with sales, budgets with finance, capital requests taken to the board, a site you opened or closed. A deputy or acting COO period belongs in the job title.
Which numbers matter most on a chief operating officer resume?
The ones the business is run on: cost per unit or margin per site, service level, inventory, throughput and safety. Give the starting figure, the result and the period for each.
How long should a COO resume be?
Two pages is normal. Keep the current and previous roles in full and cut anything older than about fifteen years to title, employer and dates.
Should a COO resume mention union negotiations?
Yes, if you led them or sat at the table. Give the number of contracts or bargaining units and the outcome in plain terms, without confidential terms.
Will applicant tracking systems read this Catalyst PDF?
The sample PDF read back with its contact details, all 4 section headings and all 12 bullets intact in three open-source text extractors (pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf). Commercial systems such as Workday, Greenhouse or Taleo were not tested, and each employer configures its own.
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