VMware Senior Product Marketing Manager Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Aug 2011 in Palo Alto, CA (took 2 months)

The interviews were fairly intense and very technical for a marketing role. I was able to handle the questions because I have a technical background. In my opinion, they were testing mostly to see how you would answer the question and also for specific examples and solutions to their inquiries. I had one phone interview, 7 face to face 1:1 interviews (on one day), and then a couple of follow up interviews (phone and in person).

I met with almost every member of the cross functional team I would be working with, as well as, the GM of the group. Everyone was smart and asked god questions. Some were a lot more prepared than others for the interviews. There were a few people who were totally unprepared and the conversations were a waste of time.

In a nutshell, smart people, but not the people I would want to work with on a day to day basis. They came across as being very arrogant and living in a VMWare bubble. The GM was the biggest turnoff since he was totally unprepared for our conversation and tried to deflect his lack of reading my resume by asking questions that were suitable for an engineer. I was not impressed by him at all. In addition, the other "marketing" and biz dev folks I met were not the type of folks I would ever put in front of customers. They did give the impression of being business savvy.

While the team was smart and clearly confident in their technical knowledge, I think the general lack of business etiquette and social skills would bore me on a day to day basis.

The company was slow to respond about my interview schedule at first, then they moved very quickly. 7 interviews in one day is way too many. The HR person's follow up was good and she was generally responsive and helpful.

The salary "negotiation" was done up front and the compensation was competitive with other Director level roles in the valley.