Jobs

MEETING PLANNER (long-term contract, $28-38/hour)

****SUBMITTING A RESUME WITHOUT A COVER LETTER TO DESCRIBE YOUR RESPONSE TO OUR REQUIREMENTS WILL IMPLY AUTOMATIC REJECTION****

World Events Forum, Inc., a small meeting planning business established in 2000, is looking for a meeting planner in the Chicago area beginning with a two week trial period who will be responsible for:

– Project management involving mainly conference planning
– Being the main liaison to clients and their respective own clients and vendors, with ability to understand goals, objectives, and time constraints; taking notes and summarizing meeting discussions and next steps, and generally helping with the flow of communication
– Developing and managing budgets; creating complex spreadsheets; creating high quality reports, presentations, conference handbooks (based on given templates), and other letters/documents
– Researching for event advertising platforms, target conference audience for database compilation purposes
– Liaising with venues or travel bureaus in securing the effective deployment and compilation of requests for proposals
– Sending speaker invitations and confirmations in connection with bookings; do all the follow ups prior to the event date
– Coordinating all services for meetings such as audiovisual, food and beverage, conference layouts/setups, signage, distribution of materials, etc.
– Compiling abstracts/bios for conference handbooks
– Producing banquet event orders
– Obtaining correct billing information for all event services and review accuracy of such charges
– Monitoring event registration, substitutions, cancellations
– Monitoring room block reservations
– Completing various administrative tasks including answering phones, responding to email inquiries, etc.

YOU SHOULD:

1. Have extensive knowledge of Office suite (i.e., should be able to merge documents across the platform, create tables of content/index tables in Word, generate personalized emails in Outlook from merged documents in Word, manipulate Excel spreadsheets and produce various graphs and statistics, etc.);
2. Have excellent communications skills coupled with:

  • Ability to be an assertive and a creative problem solver, one who remains practical at all points while anticipating potential concerns or risk
  • A high degree of diplomacy with various clients and vendors while remaining on course with the decision taken for particular actions–the focus is on finding the right win-win solution and never a win-lose one
  • Superior phone and writing skills (your grammar must be impeccable) — the project will involve extensive effective emailing and time being on the phone.

3. Extra points for graphic design skills (Publisher, Photoshop, etc.) and knowledge of html and WordPress
4. Have experience with sponsorship solicitation, grant writing and online marketing for conferences and for generating new leads
5. Have great organizational skills and attention to detail (while multi-tasking)
6. Have a demonstrated track record of reliability, superior work ethic, and achieving exceptional results

YOU WILL:

  1. Have an excellent career opportunity to work and learn in a very fast-paced environment which will challenge your good skills across tough negotiations, conflict resolution, contingency planning, complex document editing, intricate presentation materials and above all, call for your common sense at all times
  2. Have a comfortable work environment in a home office in Des Plaines
  3. Be offered snacks and light lunches
  4. Have the ability to work flexible hours (mutually agreed upon)
  5. Have the ability to work additional time to make up to five week vacation
  6. Travel to the events/conferences we organize each year (several domestic trips and one trip to Western Europe)
  7. Perform tasks which will involve the ability to exert light physical effort in sedentary to light work. Tasks may involve extended periods of time at a keyboard/work station. While on site at conferences/meetings, you will coordinate the set up and tear down of registration desks and exhibits.

This will be work on a contractual basis. If this is a positive mix, this will turn into a longer-term collaboration.

______________________________________________

Please send your resume + a cover letter which is NOT a copy-and-paste job and TELLS HOW YOU WILL FIT our requirements via email at iplan@worldeventsforum.com.

SUBMITTING A RESUME WITHOUT A COVER LETTER WILL IMPLY AUTOMATIC REJECTION.

Include any other relevant material you have created or which can illustrate your abilities.

PLEASE NOTE: Candidates invited for an interview will also be given a brief Office Suite test (Word/Excel/Outlook).

NOTE: This is NOT a telecommute job.