Event Marketing Job Postings

If you are interested in marketing, and you search for jobs online you will most likely see postings for “Event Marketing.” I would be very cautious when approaching these.

“Why?” You may ask, well I’ll tell you… right after college I was determined that I wasn’t going to live with my parents for long, so I started applying to many different kinds of jobs, not just in the music industry. I figured using marketing as a keyword could find me an enjoyable job seeing as I minored in marketing. I saw a few postings for “Event Marketing Management Training” and just “Event Marketing.” I was naïve and thought what have I got to lose? I am not going to lie I thought it was like a planning company that other companies outsourced to help them plan marketing campaigns that would eventually lead up to an event. I have always been interested in event planning so it could be a good fit. I applied to 4 or 5 of these ads, and the next day they all called me to come in for interviews the next week. So I made a schedule and a game plan – printed out directions to and from each of them (I did schedule 2 in the same day as to save me money with gas since they were all at least 2 hours away from where I was living). I was most definitely prepared for these interviews.

I showed up to the first interview, they explained how the process worked: you are an Associate for a few months (I believe it was three), then you move up to Junior Manager for another three or four months or until the partners believe you are ready and you move up to Manager and you are able to run your own campaigns and events. Now it sounded interesting especially when they asked me for a second interview, which was “in the field observing.” Every company asked me to go on a second interview; however I only went to one – believe me I couldn’t take much more than that to know it wasn’t for me. The person I “shadowed” was setting up an event for Bobby Brown cosmetics outside under a pop up tent in front of a DSW in Glensdale, NY (Long Island). I was meant to observe and absorb everything they were showing me, but I was not allowed to do “selling.” After which they “quizzed” me about what I observed and then I was called back to the office for the third and final interview, where I was offered the job on the spot. It was solely commission base on how well you “marketed” the product, which really meant how annoying you could be like the kiosk people at the mall trying to sell you useless junk that doesn’t work anyway. I told the woman I would need a few days and after I got home that day I called her and the other three or four companies back and told them I was not interested.

It just seemed off to me. And after a lot of thought I realized it had to be some sort of a scam, the job postings didn’t really give a good description of the job and you had to guarantee them like three years of your service. For me this didn’t seem to be a legit option especially since I wanted to be taken seriously when it comes to my work.

This is a case where I did research on the companies, but nothing of was how the jobs and companies really were. Unless you want to be one of the annoying kiosk people you see in the malls or on the sidewalks, this is not a good opportunity.


-k