WRG Interview Flashcards
Tell us about yourself.
Well, I love bringing people together around a common goal or cause and I’ve been organising events in some capacity or another throughout my career over the last 9 years. So, I’ve gained some valuable experience both at work and on a voluntary basis, where I’ve organised events for members of the various communities I’ve been involved in, especially while living in Colombia for the last 3 years. I love being busy and it’s really important to me to be challenged at work so the prospect of working for an organisation creating innovative solutions for their clients really excites me.
Why are you leaving PM Adept?
They can’t afford to continue paying a London salary now that I’ve moved back home and also I want a role that is solely focused on events.
Why do you want to work for WRG?
WRG is doing such exciting and important work, particularly in the public sector, and I genuinely want to get behind that. I’m in my element when planning events. Nothing makes me happier than seeing weeks and months of planning come together in a seamless event that positively impacts delegates. I know that my natural ability to build rapport with others and self-organise would put me in good stead for this role and I’d love the opportunity to demonstrate that for WRG.
What skills would you bring to the role?
Apart from being very easy to work with, I am a very good communicator, but I also understand the importance of listening to other people’s ideas and concerns. I can build rapport quite easily and I have a strong understanding of the importance of fostering lasting relationships with stakeholders and suppliers. I’m very organised, and I think the experience of moving abroad alone to start a new life in Colombia has turned me into a very resilient problem solver.
What types of events have you planned?
I’ve planned a mixture of both virtual and in-person events - whilst at AAT, I planned CPD webinars and FB live events for members. I organised English learning events for a tech company in Colombia. I organised a fundraising music event for an NGO in Colombia and a few other voluntary events while in Colombia: language exchanges and community led workshops. And most recently I helped to coordinate a virtual conference for ICOM which is a network of marketing and advertising agencies.
Talk about a time you had to deal with a setback at an event. What did you do?
I’ve had speakers cancel right before an event. A couple of times actually. Once, at AAT, a speaker cancelled on the morning of a CPD event due to sickness. Thankfully over many years of working at AAT, I had built up a network of speakers who I maintained great working relationships with and I was able to source another speaker at the very last minute who was able to speak on the same topic. I almost went over budget as we had to cover another set of travel costs but I always leave a little bit of contingency in the budget for stuff like this so we didn’t go too much over in the end.
What is your experience working with budgets?
I’ve always had to work within a set budget when planning an event. I usually start with an overall budget, which includes an extra 10% for surprise costs. When researching vendors, my goal is to always get the highest value for the least cost so I do lots of research to save money. I usually check in with the budget sheet daily, tracking every expense as I go. I’ve definitely learned that paying attention to detail, knowing how to negotiate, and having that contingency budget helps to manage costs.
A deadline is fast approaching, and you’re worried that some of the event tasks/items won’t be ready in time. What do you do? How do you communicate this
As soon as there’s even the slightest hint of a supplier not coming through or some important element of the event not being ready in time, I start exploring my backup options which I will always have started compiling a list of right back at the planning stage. I keep my team informed of any changes or setbacks while working urgently to get the event back on track
Tell me about a time you had to work for a very demanding client. How did you deal with this? What did you learn about yourself from that experience?
I organised a Q&A webinar with an expert on GDPR for members while working at AAT. We only had a limited amount of time for the event so we sourced the questions pre-event to give to the speaker so that he could pre-prepare his responses. In the event comms, we put a little note at the bottom of the registration email advising members that we probably wouldn’t have time to answer any questions in the chat during the event so it was best to send in questions via email before the event. So, during the event there was a member who had posted 2 or 3 dense 200 word questions in the chat and we didn’t have time to address them in the Q&A. The member was livid and wrote into customer support to say that she had been ignored and that the speaker didn’t want to reply because she was a woman! Anyway, this got back to me and I contacted her to apologise… I forwarded her Qs onto the speaker via email and he later resolved her queries. I learned to emphasise instructions and event details more clearly as she said she knew nothing about not being able to post live Qs
How do you keep yourself organised?
There are a few tools that I use to stay organised. Every morning I open my emails, calendar and Trello board so that I can see clearly what I have to do and then I write down on paper a list of things that I have to get done that day. As well as digital task management tools like Trello, I enjoy the satisfaction of physically ticking off tasks on my paper todo list. And my most important tool of all is Confluence, which is a beautiful tool for documentation that I absolutely swear by.
How do you handle multitasking?
Multi-tasking comes quite naturally to me, I live for variety, and I generally prefer to have lots of things going on at once, that’s both in my professional and personal life. When I’m dealing with a lot of tasks at once, I usually create a checklist, which helps me to prioritise and guides me to work on the most urgent issues first. Also, I’ve learned to batch tasks so that I’m focusing on similar activities at the same time. That way, I don’t lose time and focus when I switch tasks
What are your favourite types of events to run?
In-person events are definitely my favourite as there are usually moving parts and things to consider like catering and physical materials so I really enjoy the variety that comes from that but virtual events also have their upsides in that they’re cheaper and you can accommodate more attendees so both have their pros and cons.
How do you ensure good communication between teams?
I take detailed notes when meeting with colleagues and stakeholders. Then I summarise all actions from those meetings and phone calls and relay them back to the person I’m communicating with to ensure we’re all on the same page and that neither party has missed any important details and then send all of the discussed details and actions in a follow up email. That has usually done the trick for me in preventing miscommunication.
How do you deal with a customer who is complaining about something?
I listen patiently to his or her issue, I apologise for the negative experience and I take personal responsibility in trying to resolve the issue while remaining calm and compassionate.
The event details keep changing, and the client is flip-flopping back and forth. What do you do?
Well, in the initial planning stage, it’s really important to set expectations early on. It’s easier to set expectations from the first client interaction than to have to disappoint them later down the line. If issues do arise then, I think honesty is definitely the best policy. It’s really important to clearly communicate with the customer exactly what can and can’t be delivered.
