Meeting Planner Careers

Meeting planners are in demand, but there are different paths to success. Some people choose to start at smaller companies as a meeting planner with modest job requirements and salaries and have the option to grow into other possible roles later or to move on. Others plan on working directly for major companies that offer lucrative salaries right off the bat in exchange for competent meeting planners that are willing to give it their all.

For new meeting planners this might almost seem like there are two completely different jobs in two completely different industries, but it is not a choice unlike those faced by paralegals, bookkeepers, or other office professionals.

There is no reason that a new meeting planner could not start small and work their way up, but not everyone aspires to spend years as a meeting planner. Some change that view after a few short weeks on the job, and may even launch their own business as a freelance meeting planner. Others start in the corporate meeting planning field only to feel as if they have attached themselves to shooting comets or raging tempests of information, appointments, facts, protocols, etiquette, and rules. Some start on the low end of the spectrum with smaller businesses and dislike the requirement that they were so many proverbial hats, but that is how small and medium sized businesses tend to be in order to get by.

Ultimately the choice can be a fateful one, but a little tenacity can go a long way.

When one thinks of meeting planners they may be thinking of an office job where answering phones and entering information into a computer is all that happens. This might be true of some meeting planner jobs, but certainly not for all of them. Some meeting or event planning positions might involve a significant amount of travel, often to very interesting destinations. In short, the amount of travel involved will often depend greatly upon where one works as a meeting planner and the needs of that company/industry.

High powered executives are usually looking for meeting planners that have a flair for the dramatic or interesting. This will often entail higher salaries and/or benefit packages, but it will also mean more travel and interesting destinations. The workload may not be substantially different than that of a meeting planner for a more modest company, but the competition for such top-echelon meeting planner positions is likely to be fierce indeed. This competition is certainly justified by the compensation packages and travel opportunities, but there is also an option for homebodies who just want money: freelance meeting/event planning.

Freelance meeting planners do not always get to travel with their clientele, but it is not unheard of. Luckily, freelance meeting planners are free to collect as many clients as they can handle, and that means that there is no limit on their earning potential.

Meeting planners draw reasonable salaries when they work for companies, usually on par with a college graduate or better despite not the fact that many meeting planners lack degrees. Freelance meeting and/or event planners can make even more, especially if they can remember one thing: meetings are about people, not the issues. Some people believe that meetings are about issues, but the fact is that people create the issues and cause them to exist and not the other way around.

John Rockefeller may have said it best when he said that he would pay more for employees with people skills than any other resource or commodity under the sun, and he was one-hundred percent correct; people-skills are more important than anything else, especially for a meeting planner. This does not mean that diligence and attention to detail are not required. Instead, it means that anyone who has basic time management skills and modicum of organization can become an all-star meeting planner if they have people skills.

A meeting planner can expect to make upwards of $40,000 their first year, and they almost always enjoy substantial benefits. One of the best benefits is often going to meetings in exotic or interesting locations on the company dime, but meeting interesting people can be a boon as well.