How to be an events manager in Singapore

Aspiring to be an events manager in Singapore? Events management roles have and will always be highly sought after from marketing professionals and extremely popular among business/marketing/communications graduates, particularly with the growing MICE sector in Singapore.

A career in events management has always been look upon as glamorous, well paid and an excellent platform for networking; partially true as it appears to be but it can be extremely competitive and challenging.

Entry into the industry

Unlike specialized professions such as lawyers or accountants, there are no specific qualifications or pre-requisites to enter the industry. The general requirements would usually be a general degree in the fields of business, marketing, communications or commerce plus 1 – 2 years of relevant working experience, well groomed and able to communicate well.

For some companies, fresh graduates would be considered as well. Of course, if one is looking for a mid – senior level of jobs, 5 – 10 years of experience in the similar industry is a must.

Some typical responsibilities are

• Development, production and delivery of projects
• Delivering events on time, within budget that meet or exceed expectations
• Setting, communicating and maintaining timelines for every event
• Communicating, maintaining and developing client relationships
• Responsible for project budgets
• Ensuring smooth operations on site during the event days 

Market conditions and opportunities

Events are usually part of the marketing budget allocated by companies across all sectors. The evolving economic conditions present different commercial opportunities for different type of events and targeted audience (B2B, B2C, and B2G etc.).

Therefore, event managers are always high in demand and no lack of jobs supply opportunities all year around, depending on specific sectors.

No man is an island – Team work is KEY

Different type of events requires different strategies, coordination and project management skills. No person can effectively handle all these tasks single-handedly.

The other side of events management

Similar to a movie director coordinating the scripts, scenes, actors and actresses during the production process of a movie, the events manager is similarly doing all the work behind the scenes and the end product will be on the event day. No one ever know what went behind the scenes expect maybe for your co-colleagues.

 What lies ahead?

A successful events manager possesses several traits and transferable skillsets – self-driven, commercially minded, project management, marketing & communications, multi-tasking and P&L budgeting.

Depending on your existing career prospects and future career directions, opportunities within and outside of the events industry is constantly evolving and available. It just depends on how and if you wish to take them.

*The views expressed above are my mine and not those of my company.