01Search the role you want, not the one you have
Recruiters name assistant roles in a dozen ways, and junior operations roles in just as many — but they are different dozens. On employer job boards (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and Workable all publish every opening a company has, unfiltered) the titles that actually describe entry-level operations work are usually "Operations Assistant", "Operations Coordinator", "Junior Operations Analyst", "Business Operations Associate" and, at smaller companies, plainly "Operations". Searching "operations" on a big job board mostly returns managers and sales roles, which is why the move looks impossible from the outside.
02Read three real listings before rewriting anything
Pick three live operations postings at companies you recognise and copy the responsibilities into a doc. The pattern across them is your rewrite brief. Almost always it is the same shape: you ran processes, they want evidence you improved one. You answered to keep things moving; they need someone who noticed a bottleneck and fixed it without being asked. That difference — process runner versus process fixer — is the entire gap your CV has to close, and it is a framing gap more often than an experience gap.
03Rewrite the bullets you already have
You do not need new experience; you need the same weeks described differently. "Managed diaries and inbox for two directors" becomes "Ran scheduling and communications for two directors; cut the weekly reporting pack from three hours to one by rebuilding the spreadsheet." The second version is the same job with the operational thinking made visible. Do this for your five most substantial bullets and you have the CV for the move. Anything on it that only proves you can be reliable — and nothing else — is taking space from something that proves you can improve how work gets done.
04Apply direct, and expect the letter to carry the CV
For a career changer, the CV gets you read and the letter gets you considered. Use the letter to make the move explicit: one short paragraph on why operations, one on the process you improved, one on why that company. Generic letters read as spray; hiring managers for junior operations roles are usually reading for whether you understand what the team actually does all day. Applying on the employer’s own site — not through a recruiter repost — also means your application is read by the person doing the hiring, which matters more for a non-standard CV than for a conventional one.
What this looks like as a weekly habit
The move is not one heroic application; it is a steady number of direct ones, aimed at live listings, with a CV that already speaks operations. That is the loop cvcoach is built around: fix the CV once, then get a fresh batch of real, employer-posted UK openings matched to it every week, with the letter for the ones you like.
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