Executive & management search · Operations leadership

Who's actually right for the seat?

A resume shows where someone worked. It doesn't show whether they can run what you're building. We place operations leaders the way you'd actually want them evaluated — against the seat itself, not the words describing it.

Sample readout — how a search narrows to the right hire Illustrative pipeline
Sourced140
Active and passive candidates identified against the role profile
Screened22
Assessed for demonstrated capability, not keyword match
Slate4
Presented to you with a written assessment for each
Placed1
Backed by a 90-day replacement guarantee
This is an illustrative pipeline, not a specific search result. It shows the method: candidates are sourced broadly, screened against demonstrated capability, narrowed to a qualified slate, and placed — not matched by title alone.
When companies call us

The seat has been open longer than it should be.

01

The seat has been open long enough that the cost of waiting has quietly passed the cost of hiring the wrong person.

02

The last hire read well on paper and still couldn't run the floor.

03

Promoting your best operator solved one problem and created another — the seat they left behind.

04

Growth is outpacing how fast a generalist recruiter can actually find the right operator.

05

The right candidate isn't applying to anything. Reaching them takes more than a job posting.

06

The interview goes well. The first ninety days don't.

How we work

Scope it precisely. Then search.

Role Scoping

Before sourcing begins

Every mandate starts with what the seat actually requires to succeed — the operational competencies a resume can't show, not just a title and a list of duties. Most searches fail here, long before sourcing starts.

Contingency Search

No cost unless we place

A non-exclusive search, paid only on a successful hire — nothing changes hands until someone starts.

Retained Search

For senior or exclusive roles

An exclusive, dedicated search for roles that can't sit open — staged in installments so the work funds itself as it progresses.

Replacement Guarantee

90 days

If a placement doesn't hold within the guarantee period, the search runs again at no additional cost.

What this covers

Roles we place.

Plant Manager Operations Manager Director of Operations VP of Operations Supply Chain Manager Distribution Center Manager Warehouse Manager Production Manager Continuous Improvement Manager Logistics Manager General Manager — Operations
The part most search firms skip

Screening by someone who's done the job.

Most search firms screen for a resume that matches the job description — the right titles, the right years, the right industry. That finds people who interview well. It doesn't find people who can run the operation.

How most recruiters screen

Resume & Reference

Keyword-matched titles, checked references, a culture-fit conversation — evaluated by someone who has hired, but never run what they're hiring for.

How Mapp Recruiting screens

Demonstrated Capability

Screened by an operator who has run the floor, built the team, and knows exactly what "good" looks like in the seat you're filling.

The connection

Mapp Recruiting shares its operating background with Mapp Advisory, an operational transformation firm for growing companies — related, but distinct. Advisory rebuilds the operation. Recruiting fills the seats that keep it running. See Mapp Advisory →

Where this comes from

Screened against the job, not the job description.

Trent Mapp
Trent Mapp
Founder, Mapp Recruiting

Fifteen years of operations leadership, built on being accountable for the bottom line — not screening resumes from the outside, but sitting in the seat, building the team, and living with the hire. That range spans the full organization: hands-on shop floor execution up through the executive suite, across manufacturing, production control, reverse logistics, e-commerce fulfillment, and multi-site distribution networks.

That background is what shapes how a candidate gets evaluated here — against the actual demands of the seat, not a keyword match on a resume. The read on a candidate comes from having sat in the chair being filled, not from having recruited for it.

Mapp Recruiting is the placement arm of the same operating background behind Mapp Advisory, an operational transformation firm for growing companies.

Start here

Fill the seat once, not twice.

A quick conversation about the role, what "good" actually looks like in it, and whether this is a contingency or retained mandate.

Begin a search