Automotive Parts Manager in Minnesota at Vision Marketing Group & Associates

PARTS MANAGER — FIXED OPERATIONS

Confidential Search • Central Minnesota • Full-Time, Monday–Friday • $80,000–$120,000

THIS IS A CONFIDENTIAL SEARCH.

The dealership is not named in this posting, and your inquiry is handled with the same discretion. We know good parts managers are usually already employed, so anything you send us stays with the people making this hire, and we will not contact your employer or references without your permission. Our full commitment is outlined below.

This is a parts department being built up, not cut back. A family-owned independent pre-owned dealership in Central Minnesota — more than twenty years in business, still growing, still putting money into its facility, its people, and outside training — is making parts a dedicated business unit with its own leader, its own standards, and its own scorecard. Now we’re hiring the leader to run it.

Most parts managers inherit a counter, a bin layout, and a stack of problems nobody ever tied a number to. Here, the expectations are written down: every part and supply accounted for, inventory and accounting reconciled to within one percent, and a scorecard that shows what the department did this month. What we need is the person who owns those numbers.

Parts at a high-volume pre-owned dealership carries a dual mandate: keep retail service customers supplied with the best available option every time, and get the right part to reconditioning fast enough that sales always has fresh, frontline-ready inventory. In this business, time is the enemy — a used vehicle loses value every day it sits waiting on a part. The job is not finding the cheapest part. It is finding the fastest correct part, and doing both sides of the business well.

What Makes This One Different

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A search that protects you — and the store. Blind on purpose, and confidential from the first email to the final handshake. See our commitment below.

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No OEM red tape. None. Independent dealer. No factory stocking requirements, no warranty parts claims, no return-allowance games, no manufacturer audits, no corporate purchasing mandates. You source from whoever gets the right part here fastest.

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No weekends. The department runs Monday through Friday. You get your Saturdays back.

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A department being invested in, not squeezed. Ownership is spending on the facility, on training, and on outside fixed operations consulting, and parts is being set up as its own business unit with its own standards. The direction is up.

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A short chain of command. You report to the Director of Fixed Operations, with direct access to ownership and no corporate layers to work through. Decisions get made in days, not quarters.

What You’ll Do

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Own every parts and supply movement in the building — receiving, binning, issuing, returns, and cores — with full accountability for what comes in and what goes out

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Charge parts correctly the first time: to the repair order, to inventory, or to the expense account — no orphaned parts, no mystery adjustments

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Hold inventory and accounting within a 1% variance through disciplined cycle counts and reconciliation

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Source for two customers at once — retail service and vehicle reconditioning: the fastest correct part to recon, the best available option to retail

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Run the reconditioning parts pipeline so technicians are never waiting: track time-to-frontline and hunt down every day lost to a part

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Manage vendor relationships and pricing across OEM, aftermarket, salvage, and local suppliers — and hold vendors to their delivery times

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Oversee specialty tools and shop supplies: inventory, controls, and cost per repair order

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Control obsolescence: aged inventory, returns, and stock levels tuned to what the shop actually uses

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Build and run the department scorecard — accuracy, variance, fill rate, turn, time-to-frontline, and gross — and report it with candor

•Protect parts gross on retail work while keeping reconditioning parts cost in line

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Set the standard: an organized, accurate parts department that technicians and advisors trust

Required

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5+ years in automotive parts

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Proven experience managing a parts department or parts operation — or running the counter and the inventory as the number two and ready for the top job

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Strong command of inventory control and parts accounting: cycle counts, reconciliation, variance, and repair order costing

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Highly organized, process-driven, and accountable — you build systems and you keep them

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Comfort with a dealership management system (DMS) and daily reporting

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Ability to serve technicians, advisors, and the sales desk at the same time without dropping anything

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Valid driver’s license and a clean driving record

Preferred

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Dealership parts experience, franchise or independent — a major plus

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Dealertrack DMS experience

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Rapid Recon experience, or another reconditioning workflow tool

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Reconditioning parts experience at a pre-owned or high-volume dealership

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Experience sourcing across OEM, aftermarket, and salvage channels (RepairLink, PartsTech, LKQ, Worldpac, NAPA ProLink, and the like)

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Experience standing up or restructuring a parts department

Our Confidentiality Commitment

Changing jobs is risky when you are the person running a department. So here is exactly what

“confidential” means in this search — in writing, before you send us anything:

• The hiring team only. Your resume and your inquiry are read by the people making this hire and no

one else. Nothing is circulated internally, posted, or handed to a third-party recruiter.

• No calls without your say-so. We will not contact your current employer, your references, or

anyone in your network until you give us permission — and not a day before.

• Interviews on your terms. Off-site, early, after hours, or by video — whichever keeps this quiet.

We will work around your schedule so you never have to explain an absence.

• It ends where it ends. If it is not the right fit for either of us, the conversation stays

between us. Nothing is kept, shared, or mentioned to anyone in this market.