Recently, I posed the following question to a group of meeting planners: “What are your most pressing career-related questions?” Interestingly, the questions focused on two similar topics: 1.) How to switch from one side of the meetings industry to another and 2.) Surviving downsizing.
Meeting planners are continually curious about how they can make the transition from one side of the industry to another. Some are interested in moving from being a meeting planner to working on the supplier side, while others are considering changing from being an association planner to a corporate planner (or vice versa), or from working on-site as a meeting manager or tour director to working full time as an in-house meeting planner.
A conference manager who works for an association asked how she “can bridge that gap with employers between corporate and association experience? Is there really a gap or are my meeting planning skills completely transferable between these two sectors?”
Another individual who has been working as an independent on-site meeting manager and tour director for more than 10 years wonders, “How can I get either a freelance or full-time position as a planner? Do I really need to get my CMP beforehand in order to be taken seriously?”
The basic skills for meeting planners are the same—things like negotiating contracts with hotels, airlines and other vendors; preparing budgets; designing menus; creating agendas; and hiring audiovisual and entertainment companies. What differs is the type of meetings and events a planner is responsible for managing, the number of meetings an individual meeting planner has to handle and the industry that is holding these programs.
The first step is to learn about the company you’re targeting. Find out what industry they serve—who their audience is for the meetings, events and trade shows they offer/participate in. (If they’re in the pharmaceutical, medical device or financial services industries, you’ll also need to become familiar with the special rules/codes that govern the way they hold their meetings.) The second step is to read the job description thoroughly to determine the areas where your skills and abilities match.
The third step is the most important. You need to think like a corporate planner and describe your experience—whether it’s association or it’s on-site meeting management—so it speaks from a corporate vantage point. The concern I hear from corporate hiring managers when considering association planners is a perception that a.) They plan fewer and less complex meetings, b.) Their budgets are much smaller, and c.) They’re not used to planning meetings with anything less than a three- to five-year window. What you need to do is to change the hiring manager’s perception by describing the meetings and events you’ve managed so it eliminates this misperception.
Provide descriptions about the types of meetings and frequency of the meetings you manage. If you coordinate a series of seminars or training meetings, identify the number of cities where they’re held as well as the average number of attendees per meeting. Avoid making generic statements such as, “Responsible for managing the association’s training meetings nationwide.” Include as many details as possible by changing that statement so it reads, “Managed 35 three-day technical training meetings annually for an average of 150 attendees per location in 15 cities nationwide.”
The issue with on-site meeting managers or tour directors is that they need to convince the hiring manager that they understand how to do more than handle just one aspect of a meeting or event.
Make certain that your resume includes details about programs with a wider range of responsibilities in which you’ve been involved.
The same holds true if you’re interested in moving over to the supplier side. While it’s true that as a meeting planner you interface with a hotel regarding the contract negotiations, rooming lists and banquet event orders (BEOs), you’re still seeing it from the meeting planner’s point of view. Even with this knowledge, it’s going to take time to learn the operations end to creating and managing a meeting or event.
What you need to do is convince the hotel, venue or other supplier that it’s worth the time to hire you versus someone who already has five or more years’ related experience. Identify what will make you a success in this supplier-related position. Create a list of the top five to 10 skills and abilities you believe will make you a success. Present this in your cover letter and bring it along on a separate sheet when you go for an interview. It will provide the interviewer with some perspective on how your skills will translate to their world.
Surviving Downsizing
Even if we’re not officially in a recession, companies are feeling the impact of an economic downturn. As happened in the early 1990s when we were in the last official recession, companies and organizations are beginning to focus their attention on meeting planning departments by trying to assess their value.
In some cases, meeting planning departments have seen significant reductions in their staff, while other companies have decided to completely eliminate their meeting planning department, outsourcing the meeting planning function to a third-party meeting management company. Either way, meeting planners are feeling the pinch. With companies planning fewer and smaller meetings, how can a meeting planner ensure job security?
It’s important to be aware of what’s going on in your company; seek opportunities in less conventional areas where you can continue to use your skills and experience. Here’s how one meeting planner has managed to stay afloat in her company. During the almost 10 years she’s been there, she’s had to transform herself three different times.
In some cases, meeting planning departments have seen significant reductions in their staff, while other companies have decided to completely eliminate their meeting planning department, outsourcing the meeting planning function to a third-party meeting management company.
Originally, she was hired to plan meetings and recurring conferences for the human resources department. A good number of these meetings began to disappear about one-and-half years later, and during the last two years she’s seen a significant cutback in the company’s off-site meetings. To increase her personal return on investment, she became a certified trainer. Because meetings were decentralized in this company, another thing she did was to begin marketing outside of the usual areas she dealt with and let the directors and officers know about her ability to manage their meetings and conferences.
A more recent change is the company’s decision to build a large on-site conference center. Once this new facility opens, many of the company’s meetings will occur here. The corporate services department will be overseeing this facility, and with her position moving from human resources to this department, she saw this as an opportunity to help construct her continued role in the planning process. She’s helping design a policy that will determine whether a meeting occurs at the company’s conference center or if it’s better suited at an off-site location.
Departments will be required to get approval through corporate services, and this meeting planner will be the person reviewing the requests. In addition, once they hire a conference services manager for the facility, she/he will report to this meeting planner.
By keeping abreast of what’s going on in her company, this meeting planner has continued to find ways to prove her value within the organization. Look beyond the meetings and events you’re planning to gain a better understanding of other areas where your skills and abilities can contribute to the company’s or organization’s growth and success.
