Meeting Planner Careers

The economy has certainly closed many doors of opportunities, but it has opened plenty of windows too for the right people. Meeting planners are one career choice that may actually experience far more new opportunities being open to them than opportunities denied, and this leaves the door open for a little moonlighting. There are a few things to be aware of before moonlighting as a meeting planner:

• Your day job may not be too happy about you moonlighting, even if you do it on your own time. Discretion is the key word here, and learning how to exercise it could be the difference between getting along and putting a few thousand extra dollars in the bank each month.
• Some of the most successful moonlighters have discovered that they can make the time zones work for them. If they live in a region on PST then they try to find work from home meeting planning opportunities for clients as far east as possible and arrange to come in a little late and leave a little late at their day job. The opposite is obviously true of those living clear across the county.
• Leveraging your existing connections and knowledge is ultimately what will make you more attractive. It might be difficult for caterers or concierges to keep things straight when they don’t know that you have two sets of clients, so be sure to let them know that you are semi-freelance and that discretion on their part is rewarded with more business.

If you are planning to opt for an event-planning career, here is a personality checklist to help you determine where you stand:

Highly efficient organizational skills

A meeting planner absolutely needs to be organized at all times. Organization is a crucial factor in determining the success of any event. Ask yourself how organized you are in your professional as well as personal life. A highly organized individual is certain to succeed as an event planner, while a disorganized individual is highly likely to make a mess of an event. The important thing here is not to be just plain organized, you need to be extremely organized, desiring perfection in every detail.

The reason why you need to be so highly organized is because as an event manager, you will be expected to put up a perfect show; when clients shell out money, they expect perfect and flawless service. You would not want to get into the bad books of your clients. A good word of recommendation from a reputed client can hugely enhance your event-planning career. Read more…