Pros
Survive here and anywhere else will be a dream. You learn to problem solve, stay positive and work efficiently to deadlines at a relentless pace. If you want responsibility straight off then being the lead on the conference is great to hone your people management skills and small business knowledge. The majority of people you work with are nice as you all appear to unite in the face of long hours, flaky speakers/sponsors and the need to make a profit. Some of the reviews on here are just disgruntled former employees with an axe to grind but it really is tough in there. I don’t regret my time at IQPC- its given me a crash course in essential business skills and been an important step in developing my career that other grad jobs don't offer.
Cons
The structure of the company is its biggest issue. On each Conference you come together as a project team- 1 producer, 1 marketer, 1 SPEX 1-3 delegate sales and then later 1 ops. Everyone has anywhere between 5 and 10 or more conferences on the go at once so not one conference gets the full attention to detail or effort it deserves. Its difficult to build good team cohesion and easy for mistakes to happen and the blame game to start. Training- for the first three months you might find value in these, however they are repeated in a never ending cycle with no growth or divergence on topic, yet twice a week it takes up your valuable production time. Long hours- You will never leave your desk at 5.30pm, 12 hour days are the norm if you want to produce anything half decent or have a hope of meeting the 20/25 day production cycle deadline (this is impossible if you have a completely dud conference topic). Management view you not leaving on time as a lack of efficiency and not that your entire work day is filled with back to back meetings, internal calls and training so the only time producers can actually produce is when everyone else has gone.
