The Event Job Market's New Rules

Matt Raisner, co-founder and COO of the recently launched Candr Talent, places talent in sales, marketing, operations, and production roles, with large trade show and conference companies as clients. He shared an unvarnished look at the current job market — along with some advice for job seekers.

Skift Meetings: When you are hired to fill a role, where do you look first?

Raisner: My network, which I’m always expanding. I know the companies to look for, and I know the people to reach out to and the titles to search for. On LinkedIn, recruiters can filter a search down to the smallest thing: company, title, salary, location, title, years of experience.

A lot of the jobs we fill are very niche, like a director of operations who will manage a portfolio of 10 conferences a year ranging from smaller intimate summits up to a 20,000-person trade show, with a team of three. 

I'm looking for someone who's done that specific thing before, and at the end of the day, it’s the client who is paying me to find the right candidate. So even if someone reaches out and says they think they’re a great fit for a job, in five seconds I can look at their profile and tell if they’re a good candidate.

Do you use AI to find candidates?

We don't automate job descriptions. We write those ourselves, or typically, a client will have one in mind.

I also don't use AI to filter through candidates, or to filter resumes for keywords, but that is something that a lot of larger organizations are doing. We don't have an algorithm that we use, because we are an actual personal touch recruitment agency.

Another challenge is that there are people posting jobs who don’t know the industry. So they take what the hiring manager said they were looking for and use AI to create a job description, but sometimes you end up with job postings with unreasonable expectations. 

Is part of the challenge that there are so many more applicants?

A company will post an event job or meeting planner job, and they’ll get thousands of resumes in just a couple days. Nobody can go through all those, they have to filter them out. So people feel like their application went into a black hole.

That’s the hard part. I can't physically write everybody a rejection letter. You can at least send a message that they’re not being accepted for an interview and at least it helps them close the loop.

How important are relationships for job hunters?

Very, and that's why networking is always key. Just because someone feels like a fit for the role doesn't necessarily mean that they are.

I empathize with the job seeker, because it is really tough. But again, like I said, it's not the role of an agency recruiter to fill a vacancy for my client. I can’t just send them resumes of people who I think are really great and are on the market but don’t fit the brief I have been given.

How long should a resume be?

Two pages, three max. I think everybody in the event space wants to be a jack-of-all-trades, because they think that that's going to help them get their next job or the next contract. That makes it hard with resumes, because they want to include everything — four or five pages of every project they've ever done. 

Some people ask if they should have four or five resumes. But If you get an interview, they're going to realize pretty quickly that that's just a small part of what your role has been.

You can’t be in sales, operations, marketing, production content, and editorial all by yourself. I know it's tough, especially in the event space, because some people truly do everything and have done everything.

But you need to pick a lane. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none is not a great look on a resume. 

What is the biggest change you've seen in your industry in the past few years?

The increasing number of candidates that are available. Covid was really tough in the conference and trade show space. There have been a lot of layoffs and a lot of private equity companies coming in and buying portfolios, then integrating those teams.