Meeting Planner Careers

Meeting planners are starting to move up in the corporate world, but there are still ceilings placed on many meeting planners without an education. This is just one of the many reasons why all meeting planners should immediately start seeking part time education options, but here are a few more:

• Other opportunities await the organized – Meeting planning takes organization, but so do many other jobs. Whether it is a different career path altogether or a change of position with the same company, an education is a great idea for meeting planners looking to take on new challenges.
• Professional growth – Sometimes we do not know how much we can handle until we are pushed beyond our limits. Adding new tasks to our lives makes us better people and teaches us new time management skills, both of which are valuable assets to any meeting planner.
• Self image – While meeting planning is a growing field right now, it could very well shrink in 10 or 20 years in much the same way that realty is shrinking. Like realtors, a sudden change in the market could put meeting planners on a new career path. Having a positive self image could help make the rebound that much easier and potentially safer.

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.

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…