How to assess event planning skills

Between contacting vendors, analyzing limitations, and meeting client demands, an event planner’s job is filled with responsibilities. Hiring the right person will help you host incredible events that will live long in the memory of your attendees.

This means you need to hire event planners with the right skills. But how do you ensure your next hire possesses the appropriate abilities to succeed?

Adding a talent assessment to your hiring process will ensure your candidates have the event planning skills your company needs.

Follow this guide to discover which skills event planners need, why they are so important, and how you can use TestGorilla to improve your recruitment.

What’s an event planning skills assessment?

To ensure you hire the most competent event planners for your team, you should test candidates on relevant abilities to the profession. An event planning skills assessment is the best method for this, as it provides an objective, unbiased way of evaluating an applicant’s skill set for your open position.

Successful event planners typically possess a combination of hard and soft skills, with a focus on the latter. Interpersonal and transferable skills – such as communication, organization, and creativity – form the foundation of an event planner’s skill set.

An event planning skills assessment should evaluate the following competencies:

• Communication

• Industry knowledge

• Negotiation

• Budgeting

• Creativity

• Problem solving

• Organization

• Project management

• Leadership

While this list isn’t exhaustive, it still provides a comprehensive outline of the skills gained from event planning. Using a TestGorilla talent assessment will help you recruit the best event planners with tangible proof of their necessary skills.

Why are event planning skills important?

Event planners are responsible for strategizing, organizing, and executing events. They either work with client briefs as part of an event planning company or fulfill requirements as in-house hires. They aim to meet all the expectations of the client or company, stay within budget, and go above and beyond to ensure the event succeeds.

With such heightened responsibility, it’s crucial that event planners possess the adequate skills and traits to carry out their duties. This ensures your company holds tremendous events while remaining financially sound and fostering a positive reputation for itself.

Below, you’ll find three reasons why event planning skills are so important:

1. Fulfills briefs

Event planning is largely client-focused, meaning that most responsibilities of an event planner center on satisfying clients or in-house departments. An event planner with a comprehensive and appropriate set of skills can fulfill briefs more effectively than those who lack such abilities.

This ensures deadlines and expectations are met, contributing to a better event and an enhanced reputation for your company.

If briefs are fulfilled, your company will likely retain clients and contacts for future events. You’ll attract repeat business and introduce a steady revenue stream, particularly if you or your clients host regular events. Additionally, vendors you partner with are more likely to recommend your services to others.

2. Builds a positive reputation

Event planning skills also help with building a positive reputation for your company. Strong interpersonal, communication, and problem-solving skills are useful traits that you should look for in a new hire, because they all help foster positive relationships between your firm and your clients. This, in turn, builds both client and employee satisfaction.

This will encourage a more productive partnership and improve the overall quality of your events. Satisfied clients are more likely to keep their business with you and recommend you to others. You’ll become reputable and respected and will attract new business more easily.

3. Stays within budget

Prolific event planning skills are also important for budgeting. It’s an event planner’s duty to organize events, which involves taking care of the financial side of planning. Event planners must negotiate contracts with venues, caterers, and other service providers to ensure they hire high-quality services without exceeding the budget.

There are undeniable positive outcomes of staying within budget. Your company boosts its reputation, you save money for your client and yourselves, and you manage the event effectively. As such, budgeting is an important component of event planning skills, and your candidates must show this ability if they are to be a good acquisition for your company.

Which skills and traits are important for event planners?

The skills needed for event planning span a range of interpersonal, organizational, and self-management abilities. Event planners must be approachable and communicative while also demonstrating practical problem-solving skills and strong project management competencies.

When hiring for an event planner, your candidates must show numerous event planning skills. The best way to evaluate these is to use a TestGorilla talent assessment to evaluate applicants’ abilities. Below is a list of relevant skills to assess in your next event planner:

Communication

Communication skills are vital for event planners. Since their job is to plan and execute events, they must liaise with a full team of people to handle various tasks and ensure everything runs smoothly. Their work involves frequent collaboration with colleagues, clients, and external companies.

As a result, strong communication skills are necessary to convey clear instructions and meet client expectations. Event planners must be able to give directions in a friendly yet authoritative manner and communicate their demands clearly and concisely. 

They must also interact with various types of people in different situations, such as clients and catering companies, so they need to be comfortable speaking formally and informally. Written communication, too, must be strong, as event planners are often required to send emails and book locations.

Negotiation

Negotiating contracts and deals is a large part of an event planner’s duties. Each event requires collaboration among various companies, from the venue to catering, and event planners must negotiate a reasonable contract between each involved party. 

If your new hire possesses strong negotiation skills, they can reach agreements between companies more effectively. This speeds up the event planning process and fosters a productive working atmosphere between all parties. Compromise, persuasive abilities, active listening, and other related negotiation skills are all useful traits for an event planner to possess.

Organization

One of the key expectations of an event planner is organization. In their job role, they are required to plan, construct, and execute any event type that comes their way, such as weddings, conferences, and parties. This involves contacting multiple companies, arranging schedules, and planning the event meticulously. 

As a result, an event planner needs exceptional organization and time management skills. Your event planner candidates should show competencies in planning, prioritization, timekeeping, delegation, self-management, and reflection. This will ensure they have the skill set required to perform their job responsibilities successfully.

Creativity

Event planners use creative skills to ensure the end result meets their client’s requirements and expectations. They transform loose ideas into real-world events. Each brief is different, and expectations will vary, which means event planners must be able to find creative solutions to fulfill demands.

Often, it’s an event planner's job to envision the theme and design of the event. This requires exceptional creative abilities if they are to hold an impressive event for their clients. Designing an event is harder than you might expect, so an ideal candidate should demonstrate notable creative traits to ensure they succeed in the role.

Attention to detail

Event planners must ensure their events are memorable, appropriate, and personal. This means that attention to detail is highly important. To host more exciting events and meet as many demands as possible, event planners should oversee every small detail of the venue, catering, and decor.

Candidates with strong attention to detail are more likely to plan and host well-received events. This skill also helps ensure your company meets all the expectations and requirements as outlined in client briefs.

Problem solving

Event planning is never simple. Unexpected challenges and obstacles frequently emerge, especially during the planning and organizing phases. Event planners must stay on top of everything, ensuring issues are dealt with promptly and efficiently. As a result, they need to demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills.

As a recruiter, you must ensure your event planner candidates can create and adjust schedules, make rational and quick decisions, and plan ahead for any unexpected issues. Critical thinking is essential for event planners since they are often required to adapt on short notice to cancellations, time changes, and circumstances out of their control.

Skills and traits tests for hiring top event planners

For decades, employers have hired event planners based on resumes and interviews. While the latter is still a necessary part of recruitment, traditional resume-based hiring has become increasingly ineffective. As a recruiter, you’ll likely understand that new hires’ abilities don’t always align with their experience.

Conversely, you may have also found that inexperienced candidates sometimes turn out to be the best hires. This is because practical and soft skills are far more important than experience, particularly in event planning. Skills-based hiring is the future of employment, which is why you should introduce this approach into your hiring process.

Here are four recommended skills tests you can use to hire skilled event planners:

Project management

Our Project management test will help you hire organized and responsible event planners. Your new hire will likely manage various ongoing events simultaneously, so they will need excellent project management skills to balance their time effectively.

This test evaluates how well candidates can plan, organize, and deliver work across multiple projects. Applicants will be assessed on their abilities to estimate project schedules and control budgets, which will show you who has the best capabilities for handling events planning.

The test also examines candidates’ communication skills. More specifically, they will be assessed on accurate and appropriate communication throughout various project management and delegation tasks. Use the Project management test to hire competent event planners for your company.

Leadership & people management

Regardless of the seniority of your open event planner position, your new hire will need to demonstrate leadership capabilities. An event planner liaises with clients and directs parties according to a defined brief, so they will need to be authoritative without being offensive or controlling.

To test whether candidates possess these traits, use our Leadership & people management test. This test evaluates several key requirements for capable leadership, including:

• Delegating tasks

• Providing appropriate feedback

• Offering guidance and advice

• Supporting others

• Fostering team spirit

• Motivating others

• Making decisions

Instead of defining a specific leadership style, the test follows the situational leadership theory developed by Blanchard and Hersey in the late 1960s. This ensures your candidates are tested on their abilities to adapt their people management skills to accommodate different team members and situations. This is ideal for event planners who often need to handle unexpected obstacles.

Communication (intermediate)

Since communication is one of the key skills for event planning, we recommend our Communication (intermediate) skills test. This will assess candidates on their abilities to interact with others through a variety of means, such as:

• Verbal communication

• Written communication

• Nonverbal communication

• Interpersonal communication

• Active listening

Applicants are tested on the clarity, relevancy, and suitability of their communication. Use this test to hire expert communicators who can speak and write clearly and concisely in a variety of registers.

An event planner needs strong communication skills because they constantly liaise with clients, give directions to colleagues, and phone up external companies. The broad and varied scope of their interactions requires excellent communication skills, which is why you should include this intermediate-level communication skills test in your hiring process.

Negotiation

Event planners are often required to arrange contracts between vendors, venues, and clients. For this, strong negotiation skills are desirable. The ability to negotiate favorable deals is one of the key competencies of a skilled event planner, so it’s worth evaluating your candidates for this.

To assess the negotiation abilities of your applicants, use our Negotiation skills test. This determines how well participants can control and drive a discussion, influence others, use persuasive techniques, and leverage emotional intelligence to reach favorable agreements.

High-performing candidates will demonstrate keen negotiation abilities, marking them as potential assets for your company. Naturally, you should combine this test with others to ensure you cover as many event planning skills as possible.

Event planning skills assessment FAQs

Need more information on event planning skills and how to properly assess your candidates? Read these frequently asked questions:

Is event planning a skill?

Event planning is a skill set made up of lots of other skills. For example, to be good at event planning, your candidates must possess strong communication, organization, and leadership qualities. Being an active listener and demonstrating comprehensive creative skills are also necessary.

What are event management skills?

Event management skills represent the abilities needed to become a successful event manager or event planner. Event management and event planning skills are broadly the same since they’re essentially the same profession. These skills include leadership, negotiation, project management, communication, budgeting, creativity, and problem solving.

Which skills do you need to run an event?

Event planners and managers require a blend of hard and soft skills to run an event successfully. Strong interpersonal skills, like communication and active listening, are essential since event planners frequently interact with others. Organizational skills, time management, and leadership are also important.

How TestGorilla can help you find skilled event planners

The positive impacts of using TestGorilla’s talent assessment platform are undeniable. Our tests are created by experts, supported by science, and easy to add to your recruitment process. Each test is designed to last around 10 minutes, after which you’ll receive instant and objective rankings of all your candidates.

Here’s how a TestGorilla skills assessment can improve your hiring process:

• Leverage unbiased rankings. At the end of each test, TestGorilla ranks your candidates based solely on their abilities. You can view an unbiased list of your applicants and judge them entirely on objective performance and skills. Our skills tests help reduce unconscious bias in your hiring process.

• Decrease time spent on unqualified candidates. Once you see the test rankings, you can immediately and objectively rule out the lesser-performing candidates. This ensures you don’t invite unqualified applicants for an interview only to realize they’re not quite what you’re looking for. With TestGorilla, you can avoid wasting your precious interview time.

• Reduce overall time-to-hire. TestGorilla decreases the time it takes for you to hire a skilled candidate by giving you relevant insight and proof of ability. You’ll be able to hone in on the best candidate more easily and hire with confidence.

Get started with TestGorilla

If you want to hire the best event planners for your team, use TestGorilla’s talent assessments in your recruitment process. Your assessment can include up to five relevant skills tests from the hundreds of options in our test library. With this hiring method, you can remove bias, reduce time-to-hire, and improve the quality of your hire.

Successful event planners need skills, so why rely on resumes? Start your free TestGorilla plan today and start hiring the right people right away.