Event Planner resume examples & templates

As an event planner, you are a creator, facilitator, motivator, and finisher. Whether you specialize in weddings, parties, or corporate events, it takes a lot to get the job done. How do you create an event planner resume that tells your whole story? This all-important document needs to show that you have what it takes to pull off a picture-perfect event every single time. 

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Mid-career

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Resume guide for an event planner resume

Take your resume to new heights with the help of resume.io. Our guides and resume examples cover over 500 professions. Use our resume builder to effortlessly create an epic application. 

This resume guide and corresponding event planner resume example will cover the following:

• How to write an event planner resume
• Choosing the right resume format for an event planner
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries
• Adding your event planner experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• What the event planner market looks like, and what salary you can expect

How to write an event planner resume

Before you can start working on your event planner resume, you need to know what it includes. Here are the main features you’ll need to add. Here are the main elements: 

• The resume header
• The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The resume skills section
• The education section

Before focusing on each section one at a time, let’s look at some overall considerations for an outstanding event planner resume.

• Concentrate on how you do your job. You wear many hats to make your events as successful as possible. Therefore, your event planner resume should selectively showcase your finest moments for each job function. While it’s important to talk about the types of events you have planned, the possibilities are endless. So concentrate on how you go about your job, not just what you do.
• Highlight your flexibility. A sense of creativity and adaptability is also critical to convey on your event planner resume. While you might have planned successful events in the past, your future employer might have other expectations. Brand yourself as an event planner who is flexible and responsive—someone everyone can work with.
• Don’t forget the “wow” factor. Make sure you carry through essential career highlights in the background, but every few lines, inject some “wow” factor detail. You want prospective employers to feel excited about the events you have organized. almost wishing they had been there. Include metrics to back up your claims.
• Choose the perfect layout. You want to entice the hiring manager. For that reason, you need to have a design that grabs their attention immediately. Select the perfect resume template from our builder tool.
• Include the right keywords. Optimize your resume with appropriate keywords, which you can usually find in the job advert. However effectively these stories are woven into your event planner resume, it will all be for naught if no human has a chance to read them. So above all, you must make sure your resume passes the ATS test.

Choosing the right resume format for an event planner

The best resume format to highlight your value as an event planner is a structural decision. The most commonly used chronological resume format is ideal for most occupations, and likely suitable for your career highlights. It provides the most straightforward overview of a job applicant's work history, particularly if it follows a linear pattern of employee positions.

But if the event planner role you are pursuing is a radical departure, or your job background has been less straightforward, take a look at alternative resume formats. 

Having a history full of contract work might be a reason to consider a functional resume structure. Your most relevant qualifications can thus be organized according to projects, clients, or transferable skills. For even more versatility, a hybrid resume format combines both chronological and functional elements. 

Looking for a quick way to get your resume off the ground? Use one of our resume templates in our resume builder. We have a wide range that uses each of these formats. You can also take a look at our resume examples to see how each of these formats may work.

Include your contact information

The header is your resume’s business card. It contains all of your contact details. If you wow the hiring manager with your application, they’ll want to get in touch with you.

Let’s take a look at what you need to include in this section: 

• Full name & title. Start with your full name and the job title, i.e. “Event Planner”.
• Professional email address. List a professional email address that you use on a regular basis.
• Phone number. Include a number where you can be contacted. Be sure to check that the answer phone message is suitable for work.
• Location. You don’t need to list your entire address. Instead, just add your city and state. You can also write ' Willing to Relocate' here if applicable.
• LinkedIn. As an event planner, chances are you have a dazzling LinkedIn profile. Make sure it’s up to date and add a hyperlink to it here.
• Website. If you have a professional website that is dedicated to your business, now’s the time to include it. You can also add a hyperlink in your header. 
• Instagram. On the same note, should you have a business Instagram where you show off the events you’ve planned, include it as a hyperlink. (Of course, you shouldn’t include a link to your personal Instagram as this is not appropriate.)

Don’t include:

• Date of birth. This can lead to age discrimination. You should not include it.
• Personal details. Don’t include details like your marital status, social security number, passport number, or personal social media accounts.
• Photo headshot. You don’t need to include a photo of yourself for this job.

Make use of a summary

Also known as a profile or personal statement, the summary of your event planner resume should lead with some of your most impressive events to reassure your future employer that you are a safe pair of hands.

All event planners will say that they are good communicators, proficient at solving problems, and possess a fine eye for detail. You should say that too, but not necessarily in this section. Focus your summary on what you have delivered rather than how you delivered it (that can come later in your employment history section). Lead with your big guns, leaving the window dressing.

A great event planner summary should incorporate name-dropping and numbers. Tell your prospective employers the brands that you worked with. Let them know where the events were, who was invited to speak, and how many attendees there were. Make these events sound like ones that readers themselves might want to attend. You also want to include a selection of action verbs that give your summary that extra oomph. 

Don’t exaggerate your descriptions; just come across like it's all in a day's work. Your resume summary should give a sense of your job being visibly effortless on the surface, like a swan swimming serenely across the water, while hinting at the frantic activity beneath. You don’t need flowery language; just be matter-of-fact.

Here's an example: Organized an annual two-day conference for 800 people with 50 speakers and 55 sponsors, achieving a 92% "extraordinary" rating. 

You want a prospective employer reading this resume summary to be thinking one thing: “Wow. I wonder if this event planner can do that for us?”

While your industry experience is likely varied, focus on your event planning experience that comes closest to the job you seek. There is nothing worse than a recruiter reading the first few lines of your resume and thinking you are not the right fit, regardless of your relevant experience. But if you delve deep into a couple of relevant areas in your resume summary, any employer will be intrigued and want to arrange a job interview to find out more.

You can find adaptable event planner resume examples summary below:

Outline your event planner work experience

When you are an event planner, things rarely go perfectly according to plan. The measure of your ability is how you cope with unexpected hiccups. Don’t avoid this in your event planner resume. Event planning is not a simple occupation; pretending otherwise would be disingenuous. 

A “perfect” resume that presents you as an omniscient sage of the events industry would surely be a lie on some level. Obstacles come your way regularly, so your employment history resume section should mention a few relevant examples. You can go back to the last 10-15 years to find these. Be honest with employers, and they will warm up to you.

If your resume reads like a boring description of responsibilities, few people will feel enthused. If, on the other hand, you share some of your career ups and downs, recruiters will understand that you can handle the rough times and ride out the easier ones. 

Here’s an example of dull bullet points for this section: 

• “Planned corporate events”
• “Worked with a range of vendors”
• “Organized volunteers”

You can vastly improve these statements by adding some much-needed detail in the form of results-based points. Let’s take a look: 

• “Planned and executed 30+ corporate events annually, with budgets of $20K”
• “Built and maintained a network of 20+ reliable cuisine vendors”
• “Led cross-functional teams of 10+ staff and volunteers”

Your resume's employment history should cover every job aspect, with your experience spread across past employers. If possible, pick out event planner roles that most closely relate to the job you are applying for. It is better to expand on relevant experience than include stuff that deters employers from thinking, “Oh, that is not for us.” 

Take a look at the event planner resume employment history resume sample below:

How to write an event planner resume with no experience 

Are you lacking experience in the event planning department? If so, you can still write a winning resume. We recommend the following top tips: 

• Highlight your transferable skills. Consider talents you’ve used in previous roles and how they would help you excel in a position as an event planner.
• Talk about why you have chosen this path. You may want to outline the career choice within your resume objective, for example.
• Showcase your communication abilities and your customer service skills. These are entirely necessary for an event planner. You may also want to demonstrate times when you have used each of them.
• Be direct and honest. We all have to start somewhere, and so there’s no shame in having no direct experience on your resume.

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great event planner

It takes a lot of different skills to deliver amazing events. Falling short in certain areas will have a detrimental impact. Every event planning skill matters. The role of an event planner is so skill-dependent that your future employer needs to see evidence of every skill that could contribute to managing great events. 

You will need to have a mixture of both hard skills and soft skills to get the job done. You will not have the resume space to highlight every skill for every event planning role, so space them out in different sections, in order of importance to the job you are applying for and your most recent accomplishments. 

You can use our resume builder to select a range of pre-written key skills to choose from with proficiency ranges you can set. You may also want to add your own skills, too.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our event planner resume template. 

Looking to add more detail? The longer-format sample skills below could be integrated into your event planner resume summary and employment history sections.

• Organized and managed over 50 conferences with 400 to 2,800 attendees.
• Created a visionary series of online mass participation seminars with business leaders.
• Responsible for internal breakfast clubs, all-hands meetings, and quarterly all-star trips.
• Raised awareness of events on social media, increasing participation by 450%.
• Communicated with stakeholders and suppliers via a bespoke app that I created.
• Achieved an average 97% satisfaction rating for round table HR seminars.
• Consistently ran events under budget, achieved estimated ROI uplift of 330%.
• Managed a four-member marketing team and provided training in event management techniques.
• People motivator and problem-solver when the inevitable challenges arise.

Look to the job description as a guide for what key skills to include.

Detail your education & relevant event planner certifications

A bachelor’s degree in sales and marketing, or another business qualification, is typically preferred and held by most event planners, even if their resumes tend to focus on experience rather than education. 

If you do have copious amounts of on-the-job experience—even in a more junior event planning role—your education (or lack of it) need not get in the way of a fantastic position. 

However, here are some of the optional qualifications you may include: 

• Professional qualifications: For example, you might include details of being a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) or a Certified Special Events Professional (CSEP).
• Specialized qualifications: If you have a niche, you may want to add in a corresponding qualification. For example, if you’re a wedding planner, you may have the Certified Wedding Planner (CWP) status. This can set you apart from the crowd.
• Hybrid of digital certificates: Since the pandemic, many events now take place online. You might have a Digital Event Strategist (DES) qualification, for instance.

Let’s take a look at how this section may look in our event planner resume example: 

Pick the right resume layout and design for an event planner resume

As an event planner, you know that visual presentation and first impressions are everything. If the appearance isn't attractive, no one will stay for the content. 

That's why layout, design, and formatting choices have so much bearing on the impact you are striving for in a professionally stylish-looking resume. It should be visually clean and easy to read with enough white space for readers to pause and take in what has been written. 

The layout and design should showcase the events to your credit as being at the heart of every resume section. The key moments of your career will be lost if there is too much text. Balance the bullet-pointed examples with fully constructed sentences.

Make sure that all parts of your CV are legible for “reading” by machines and humans alike. Not all ATS systems will pick up on certain graphic elements, such as those found in the header section, unless they are formatted properly. 

If you have graphic design experience, you might want to tackle these formatting and design details yourself. But if you need perfection on the fly, then it's probably best to opt for a resume template. Templates allow you to plug in your information into a pre-designed format and rest assured knowing your resume is properly spaced with the correct fonts and margins.

Resume.io offers expertly designed, field-tested resume templates in four categories: professional, modern, creative, and simple. Take into account the branding and tone of your prospective employer and industry before choosing a template.

Event planner text-only resume example

Event planner job market and outlook

It’s a great time to dip your toes into this industry. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the event planner sector is set to grow by 7% between 2023 and 2033. That’s faster than average, making it a great career choice. 

What type of salary you can expect as an event planner

The money you make will depend on the sector you’re in. However, as an average guide, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that event planners can make $56,920 per year. Should you choose to start your own business, your earning potential may also skyrocket.

Key takeaways for an event planner resume 

Include the most relevant skills and examples to create a rounded picture of your event planning accomplishments. As an elevator pitch, your resume summary captures some of the biggest events you have managed. Demonstrate awareness of the employer’s industry niche by sharing your relevant experience. Don’t be afraid to talk about event plans that haven’t gone so well and how you solved the problems. Why not get started with our resume builder now?