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Event Management work experience essay/ Skills I have developed and learned [2]
I am finding it really difficult to write this and I don't know why :(
It is a general essay on which skills I have developed and learned through a work placement at an events company and how they will benefit me in working life
See below:
January
On my first day in work placement, I attended a meeting about the upcoming event which I will becoming involved with. During the meeting I was also introduced to the members of staff based in the office and given information about my role within the organisation and the general tasks I would be carrying out. I took down information at the meeting for minutes, See Appendix for minutes of the meeting held. The meeting went over all that had been done for the festival so far and was the last formal meeting to be conducted before the event. I then got a tour of the workplace by the event manager and was given an induction involving work protocols and the general tasks I would be undertaking. I then familiarised myself with the computer programs and email systems. I learnt about the phones and how to make internal and external calls and practiced with this
During my first month at placement I also developed professional relationships with the staff and developed my communication skills with staff internally over the phones
Almost immediately I had to become proficient in my use of the phones as communication is key in this organisation with much of the information being transferred through the use of phone calls. I have to answer telephone calls internally from staff and also take incoming calls from various businesses, sponsors, the public etc.
I had to familiarise myself with the basic information of the company as many people were phoning up asking if they could speak to certain people with roles such as the Youth Co-ordinator so I had to learn quickly who everybody was and how to transfer calls and place the caller on hold etc
I had to also learn basic information on FĂŠile such as the opening hours, when the festival would be taking place, where the venue was, how much tickets were, were there any tickets left etc. I feel this will be a learning process and will only come from experience, but I am more confident now in taking the initiative to find out the information myself from the computer system rather than asking co-workers. I feel my main problem in answering the phones was not taking down the correct information, I didn't ask people to spell their name or email address out to me and just wrote down what I had initially thought it was and was taking their contact information down wrong and not getting the right information for members of staff but I have ensured now that I make people spell out everything if I am unsure.
I was tasked with contacting businesses regarding taking out an advert in the program for the upcoming event. I was given an ad specification (See Appendix) and had to contact businesses from there. I developed my skills of taking instruction and then working on my own initiative from that as I had to come up with an action plan as to what I was to do. As a starting point, I looked through the program from the previous year and contacted any businesses who had taken out an ad before. After that I searched the local newspaper and online for any businesses in West Belfast or the City Centre which I thought would be likely to take an ad out.
I found it rather challenging to begin with as I was a little under confident and nervous but I improved on my communication skills over the course of the phonecalls and now I carry a professional and articulate manner on the telephone which I find to be very beneficial in the workplace. I found this task also greatly improved apon my selling and persuasion skills. I had to ensure that I followed up with any phone calls made and was persistent with people as they would often not phone back or respond. Within the phonecalls, I also had to bargain and negotiate a price with people. What I learnt most from this task was that communication is key, and a friendly persuasive manner is the best selling technique.
There is a deadline to stick to in regards to the programme production and printing date so I have to ensure that I kept to the deadline and had everything done for an appropriate time. I had to communicate the progress of this task with members of staff throughout so I kept a database of replys from businesses and gave a daily update to the event manager and marketing officer so they were kept in the loop and knew what was happening. I found this was highly beneficial as it kept everybody informed and ensured I knew exactly who I had contacted, what I had offered, what they had offered, what their response was and what action I had to conduct after this. See appendix for database of businesses contacted about an ad
February
While last month I was just getting to grips with what was expected of me, I believe I have progressed this month into being confident in a professional environment. My communication skills have improved greatly with me now speaking confidently on the phone and in person and being able to handle inquiries from the public and organizations with ease. I had to complete the task of contacting businesses about taking out an ad in the programme. Although last month i was progressing to having a more confident tone and ease on the telephone, i believe this month i have developed a negotiable and persuasive skill on the phones vital for a role like this and have benefited greatly from it in this task as you can see from my progress in month one to the final ads in February (see appendix).
I was also tasked with the task of creating passes for all members of staff for the upcoming event. I had to firstly design the passes which i found quite challenging as graphic design was always an area i was weak at and instead of employing the use of a professional graphic designer which i would usually do in previous events i was involved with through college, i made a go of it and created a number of different designs (see appendix) i feel i have truly developed a new skill and something i actually enjoy. Completing this task has given me the confidence to attempt the basics of graphic design in the future for events for things like tickets and leaflets and i would like to enroll in a Photoshop course to develop this new skill further so i can produce higher quality work in the future