FederalConference Reviews

The work load is too much for one person. Quantity is valued over quality, with no real chance of attention to detail. The event planners are set up for failure with about 42-45 events per quarter. As a planner, there were weekends where I had up to 15 events all happening at once. They claim "work/life balance", but you are on call 24/7. The clients will call and email throughout evenings and weekends. Upper management is completely ignorant of all things related to event planning. I'm not sure any of them have ever planned or executed an event. Therefore, they don't really understand what the event planners do. It is incredibly frustrating to work for someone who does not understand your job. There is also no room for growth. The "Event Planner" position is the highest title available, with no chance of getting a substantial pay raise. The starting salary is far below the industry standard. Lastly, the office is crawling with mice and dust mites, and the owners have no intention of improving the situation. If you enjoy the literal smell of mouse urine, this job may actually be for you.

1. Low pay for the amount of responsibilities on one person (40+ events a quarter is absolute madness) You can travel into DC and make more money (Additional $10k-15k on average) and have less of a workload. The pay is way below average for the area. Know your worth...you will be underpaid here. I 100% guarantee it. And management can cut out their crap excuses as to why they couldn’t offer more compensation. 2. Coordinating 40+ events within a government quarter is absolutely absurd. I talk to industry people now and they could not wrap their heads around the amount of events I was assigned while working there. It is way too much. 3. Office is an absolute dump. Vermin, poor air quality with employees having respiratory issues while working there, bad neighborhood (armed robberies up in the shopping plaza, shootings in neighborhoods nearby, and cars broke into in the parking lot) packed in like sardines with no privacy or space to move. You work on top of one another. Office issues sometimes were handled very poorly by senior leadership who refuse to acknowledge that their building is an absolute joke. Never could understand how they could parade prospective clients through there like it was the Taj Mahal. I was embarrassed for them. 4. Senior leadership really can’t be trusted, nor can the office spies they had going around reporting back any grievances they heard employees expressing. Watch what you say there. Management acts like they care when employees are unhappy, but they really don’t. It’s like a high school with the petty office politics and gossip. 5. Incompetency from multiple departments; iT, accounting, HR. 6. Situations always are being blown of proportion. Mistakes are amplified and made into a bigger deal than what it needs to be. They will make an example out of you in front of the entire company. It’s not learning from mistakes there, it’s being made to feel ashamed of what you did in front of everyone. 7. Inconsistency of policies and protocol. They are all over the place. One day you do one thing, and the following day it can be something different. 8. Don’t believe the lie in the interview about the work-life balance. You will never be able to disconnect from this job. Clients will constantly be calling or emailing you, even late at night. These events are all done remote. So don’t expect a Friday dinner out without phone calls from clients with event issues. Even when on vacation, you will be working because the event assignment policy while you are on PTO is garbage! 9. No room for advancement. You hit the cap when you become an Event Planner. Not a place to go if you are ambitious and want to advance in your career.