Requesting Insider Information

March 31, 2006 2:55 AM

Five minutes ago, I heard about an interview that will take place tonight. Does anyone know anything about the firm IQPC, or the conference industry, that could help me get this job, and get to New York?

If I score this job, I'll be joining all you sexy New York mefites for 12 months. I couldn't be more excited about that, but right now I have to knuckle down and get prepared while putting in a full day's work.

As I'm in the UK, this is a phone interview. I plan on reading up on this question for a start.

This opportunity has come at me rather suddenly, and it would would mean a change of industry. However, I have organised events at university (clubnights, dinners, freshers' fairs). What I don't yet have is any knowledge of the conference industry in North America.

The job title is Operations Manager - Marketing Support. I think that's just about vague enough that I could end up doing anything. Indeed, in their description they mention that "The position is exposed to customer service, marketing, sales, production and finance."

Since that's so general, I figure I mainly need to be generally intelligent about the field I plan on working in. Any perspective, from insiders, attendees, or those that contract conference organisers would be useful right now.

And any inside info on the firm IQPC would be like gold dust.

Many thanks Metafilter.

posted by godawful to work & money (9 comments total)

To be clear: I'm not asking people to do my research for me, just wondering about what the industry looks like from the inside...
posted by godawful at 5:49 AM on March 31, 2006

You might want to look at separating your working life from your bloglife if there is any chance that people that might employ you object to your point of view (I did). Good luck though, I like to see people succeed.
posted by tellurian at 5:57 AM on March 31, 2006

Have I done something wrong?
posted by godawful at 6:35 AM on March 31, 2006

godawful: you're asking about a company on a VERY visible website, and your name is in your profile... can you put 2 and 2 together? ;-)
posted by slater at 6:47 AM on March 31, 2006

Call me dense, but I don't get what the problem is? What did he do wrong?
posted by orangemiles at 7:07 AM on March 31, 2006

Well sure, they might see this sometime. I don't really care if they know I got excited about this opportunity and asked communities I'm involved in to share any info they might have. I'm not asking for trade secrets, just new perspectives.
posted by godawful at 7:16 AM on March 31, 2006

I don't think the problem lies in you getting excited about your interview, i think it lies in the fact that information employers aren't allowed to question you during an interview (religion, marital status or whatever), could be found out by easily doing a websearch. Basically you don't want to give them a reason to not hire you, and your online trail could come back to haunt you.

Having said that, I really have nothing to offer in regards to the original question. The job sounds pretty generic, and it appears you'll have to move at some point to actually work. It also sounds like you're really excited, so if it were me, I'd try not to let anything slip like "i've asked an online community about you so i'd be more prepared" or "it's going to be hard to move from the UK." You don't want them to actually go and check out your communities, until at least after you're hired. Don't plant the seed that you have an online past.

Just be yourself and somehow convince them that you are the best candidate and if you succeed in that you'll get hired!
posted by bigdave at 10:01 AM on March 31, 2006

IQPC organizes conferences on a very specific theme - namely, work productivity techniques like Six Sigma. If you aren't familiar with Six Sigma, you should read up a bit on it since it's the crux of what you'll be marketing to potential attendees. But seeing as how you're working within such a short timeframe, it's probably better to just brush up on your resume and think about why you might want to work in this field.
posted by junesix at 10:37 AM on March 31, 2006

The conference planning industry can be lots of fun if you're young and don't plan on having a real life. I worked for SmithBucklin years ago and while I really enjoyed my job, many of my colleagues were burning out and dying to get out.

It is, however a great learning environment and you make lots of contacts.
posted by FlamingBore at 1:56 PM on March 31, 2006