Symantec Principal Program Manager Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jan 2010 in Lindon, UT (took 4 weeks)

Submitted my resume online and received email contact within 5 days that there was interest in my background. Initial contact through the in-house HR recruiter. He arranged a first phone interview with the hiring director which took place about two weeks later. The phone interview took about 30+ minutes and was a general review of experience/accomplishments. It was enough to get me to the next level of phone interviews. Over the next week I had two more phone interviews with senior program and product managers...either part of the team I would be on or a related team I may work with. These are basically additional screenings to determine if you'll make the cut for on-site interviews. Each interview style was a bit different, but one of them (and most of the on-site interviewers) liked situational questions (e.g., "Tell me about a time when you confronted such and such situation and how you handled it").

I passed these additional phone screening and was invited for on-site interviews the following week. This was a full-day event where I met with four new people 1:1 for an hour each, the hiring director for an hour lunch, plus was required to give a 15-20 minute presentation to the group. Most interview questions were situational, but one of the interviewers was more relaxed and mostly talked about the company and people vs. asking me a lot of questions. The presentation could be on any topic and any format. I chose 'What makes a good Program Manager", highlighted some of my qualifications and experiences (through stories) as to why I was a superior candidate and used some PowerPoint slides during the talk. With some breaks, I think the day was just under 7 hours long.

I sent thank you notes (emails in this case) to each person I met with and then waiting while I followed up with other candidate companies I was courting. About 1-1/2 weeks later I received contact from the HR recruiter that we were still moving forward and they wanted a list of five professional references. I provided those and a day later the recruiter notified me they were planning to extend an offer. Received the written offer two days later.