IQPC reviews

3.6

60% would recommend to a friend

(981 total reviews)

Rick Worden

70% approve of CEO

67% positive business outlook

IQPC has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 981 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The IQPC employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

981 reviews
1.0
Sep 7, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Disclaimer I left Iqpc on my own accord and was not let go. My evaluation is impartial and very honest. I hope this is not misrepresented as vindictive, as that is not the case. This is merely a warning. If management likes you as a person, they will be more lenient. Instead of firing you in 2 months they will give you 3. They do promote relatively fast, only because the turn around is so high. Even if you are promoted all the way up, you are still making peanuts compared to industry standards. Eg: Reps make 37,500 base. Managers make 5,000 more etc. To add insult to injury they also charge 13% from the gross. Sort of a house tax for you to work there in sales. Total Joke.

Cons

Poor products. No ethics, sales people will constantly lie to attempt to close deals on unsuspecting small or middle market companies. Horrible reputation ( Bait and Switch) Bottom of the barrel employees. Poor experience, lack of education. Essentially what IQPC/ IDGA are companies that parasite off of hot macro topics. It could be military related, technology, oil/gas etc. The people that are involved from the top to the bottom have no subject matter expertise, as to them that is unnecessary. The problem with that is delegates see no value in their events. To be fair, not all events are horrible. They have 1 or 2 marquee events that are already hounded by 1 or 2 account executives. To summarize my experience, "Management" will mislead you like they mislead their clients to get you into the door. Long story short, after working at 2 fortune 500's and 1 disruptive technology company, this company is incompetent at best. Therefore to be profitable they must lie. If you cannot do the job, then you must lie to the client and find new ones. Thus the revolving door. This job is good for 2 types of people. 1. People who have poor education or from poor backgrounds. The best they will do is this company and by misleading people they can make a decent salary (60,000) 2. Fresh out of college kid who comes from a third tier college or is hard pressed for money. 37,500 is starting for them. Technology companies like Yodle, Reach Local, etc. pay 40,000. Even then those companies are considered junk. Based on my experience here, it is a third tier company for people who are not highly educated or have the connections to move to more lucrative positions and companies.

5.0
Sep 5, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

IQPC was my first job and like many others I'm sure, thought that I would only be in the job for a year - maybe two at the most. In fact, within my first few months of joining SARS hit and about a third of the office ended being retrenched. It was not a pleasant experience, however, due to the economic crisis stuck it out. And was I glad I did! There are hardly any jobs out there that give you real exposure to P&L and what you do each day impacts the business. You can visibly make a difference to how your conference is developed, sold and marketed which gives you great satisfaction. You are not only accountable for your decisions, but responsibility is entrusted to you. Additionally, what always got me going was researching what made industries tick - I was able to research into pharma, oil & gas, telcos, HR for example and gave me access to business leaders I would not have had a chance to meet otherwise. And talk about turning up on the first day of your conference and having people shake your hand for putting on such an excellent event they enjoyed - priceless! IQPC has an extremely dynamic work culture where you work and play hard. It is a very flat structure so getting face time with the MD or senior-level folks is very easy. You will meet extremely talented and intelligent people who because of the high work pace usually have a sense of humour as a given. Training and development are also focused on which is unusual in the commercial conference industry and IQPC is one of the few companies I know that have a dedicated training Academy to set you up to succeed. There is also the opportunity to travel to the events you run or even within the organisation. I was lucky to have worked in a number of global offices in Europe, US and Asia. I'll not kid you - the work is hard and pace is punishing, but the rewards are unmatched. Profit share is excellent and conferences are one of the few business models where on a first time launch you can aim for a 60% GP margin which translates into a nice cheque for you. Ideally, you must be someone that thrives on working at light speed, hitting deadlines, smashing sales targets and ultimately believe and are passionate about conferences as a means for industry to connect, get updated on latest trends and do business.

Cons

So what about the cons? Well the down-side is this is not a place for you if you are not deadline or results-driven. With a leaderboard it's very clear who is performing and who is not. If you don't perform, sorry you're out. You will know very quickly whether this is the job for you. Also, this pace can be hard on you so make sure you don't burn out by taking the time out to recharge and keep things in perspective. In the end - do I regret my career in IQPC? Certainly not. Would I advise you to go in with your eyes open? Certainly. But in the end, if all the above sounds like somewhere you'd like to work, then the development opportunities, rewards and future colleagues, will certainly not disappoint you.

5.0
Sep 5, 2012

Not for everyone, but certainly for me

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work hard, play hard, innovation, independence, creativity, training, development, career progression. All these I have experienced personally at IQPC . Has my career here been easy, not always but has it been worth it absolutely. I had to work hard, at time long hours and stress have been involved but I’ve been rewarded with loyalty and respect from senior management across many global offices There are few companies that will employ relatively inexperienced people and invest in giving them the tools to succeed. How do I know this is true, because I spend every day doing just that for IQPC. You could rebuke this by saying but you don’t do it for everyone, of course we don’t, show me a company that does.

Cons

The conference business is fast paced, target and performance driven and highly competitive - it's not for everyone and tends to incite a love, hate relationship. IQPC looks for people who thrive in that environment and yes because of the project nature of the work it’s impossible for the business to sustain continual poor performing individuals. Staff turnover is higher than many industries but for every dissatisfied employee I could show you an example of someone who left us equipped with the tools to accelerate their career in ways they simply could not have done without the training we provided. Or, someone who left, tried the greener grass and choose to come back.

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