Behavioral Interview Questions for Event Managers
By Dara Halloran · Under Pressure
What behavioral questions do event manager interviews ask? Expect something that went wrong during a live event, a client who changed the brief late, a budget that ran over, a supplier who let you down, and a team working under pressure. Answer with real events, what you did on the day and what you changed afterwards. Show your work, not just how much the client liked you.
An event manager's work is judged on one day, in public, with no chance to do it again. Interviews for the role are built around that: most of the questions are about the day itself, and especially the parts that did not go to plan.
A note on how you come across
Event managers are often naturally warm and client-focused, and it shows in interviews. That helps, up to a point. In a field study of real job interviews, Stevens and Kristof found that applicants used self-promotion more than ingratiation, and that these impression-management tactics predicted interviewers' evaluations and whether applicants were invited to the next stage.1
Use that knowledge carefully. Talking about how happy your clients were is fine; letting it replace a clear account of what you actually did is not. The panel needs to hear the decisions, the numbers and the problems you solved, so make sure every warm story also contains them.
On the day
"Tell me about something that went wrong during a live event." The central question. Show what you noticed, how fast, what you did, who you told, and whether the guests ever knew. Then what you changed in your planning afterwards.
"Describe a time a key supplier didn't turn up or didn't deliver." Show your backup, your speed, and how you handled the supplier afterwards.
"Tell me about a time an event ran badly over time." How you decided what to cut, who you consulted and how you told the audience.
Clients
"Tell me about a client who changed the brief late." Show how you priced and planned the change, what you could and could not do, and how you kept the relationship.
"Tell me about a client you disagreed with." About the venue, the format, the budget. How you made your case and what happened.
Money
"Tell me about an event that went over budget." Where the overspend came from, when you saw it, what you told the client and what you changed.
"How have you saved money on an event without the guests noticing?" A specific change and the saving.
Planning
"Walk me through how you plan an event from the brief to the day." This is a process question disguised as a behavioral one, so use a real event to answer it. Show the timeline you work back from, the decisions that have to be locked early (venue, date, key suppliers), how you track the critical path, and the point at which you stop accepting changes from the client.
People
"Tell me about managing a team or volunteers under pressure." How you briefed them, how you handled someone who was struggling, and how you kept everyone working to the same plan.
The numbers to have ready
The scale of your largest events (attendees, budget, number of suppliers), budget against final cost, attendee satisfaction or feedback scores, and any repeat bookings from clients.
One answer, told well
"At a 600-person awards dinner, the AV company's main projector failed twenty minutes before doors. We had a spare, but not one bright enough for the room. I moved the award slides to the two side screens, asked the host to read each winner's citation aloud, and briefed the photographers to cover the stage closely. The client didn't notice until I told them. Since then every contract specifies a like-for-like backup on site."
It shows the problem, the fast decision, the workaround and a change to the process. Many of the same live-pressure questions come up for hotels; see behavioral interview questions for hotel managers. For the structure of every answer, the STAR technique.
References
- Stevens, C. K., & Kristof, A. L. (1995). Making the right impression: a field study of applicant impression management during job interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(5), 587–606. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.80.5.587