Help wanted

Employers dish on what they look for in meeting planner candidates.
By Libby Hoppe

Desired but not required. We’ve all seen those words listed on a job posting under qualifications and minimum requirements. But exactly what do those words mean? When the desired-but-not-required trait is meeting planner certification, does it hurt a candidate who doesn’t have CAE or CMP attached to his or her name?

“Not at all,” says Ellie Young, executive director of USINEX (or Unix User Group), the Advanced Computing Systems Association. The association recently put the feelers out for a full-time meeting planner responsible for site selection, conference budgets, speakers, catering, audiovisual, volunteers and everything else that goes into conference planning. The job posting listed such requirements as three years of meeting management experience, strong organizational and logistical skills, flexibility, experience with registration software and ability to travel. Nowhere did the posting include planner certification requirements.

“I do not believe a certification tells me anything about whether the person can do the job,” says Young. Instead, she looks for someone who is detail-oriented and can handle a number of responsibilities at once. She also seeks out “someone with fabulous customer service, in serving our members [and] clients as well as making our suppliers feel like they want to work well with us as a team.” And the last skill she looks for? Ability to negotiate; someone who is tough but also flexible.

It’s not that she thinks certifications aren’t worth anything. “It does say they are committed to the profession,” she says. But it’s experience that really matters to her. Experience also matters to Brad Weaber, executive vice president of event services at SmithBucklin, an association management firm. The company regularly hires planners to help serve more than 300 trade associations, professional societies, technology user groups, corporations and more. But in addition to experience, Weaber admits that certifications are a big plus for candidates. “Having certifications [is] definitely a résumé booster when taken into consideration with the total picture of the candidate,” he says.

“The key to a successful event planner is a mix of energy, experience, ability to demonstrate exceptional organization skills and decisive and solid business acumen,” says Weaber.

In addition, he says experience in various types of events — corporate, association, government — is beneficial for a SmithBucklin job. Still, every candidate is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. “The key is finding the right fit for the right position.”

Every organization and every company is different. Some put more importance on certifications while others include certification as an unequivocal requirement even to apply for a job. In a competitive job market, candidates can find it difficult to assess what makes them stand out from the crowd. The good news is that for some employers, it’s not all about certification. Sometimes, it’s just about who can get the job done.