I applied via an opening listed on LinkedIn and was contacted a few days later by a recruiter who scheduled a phone call to open dialog for a "screening".
The recruiter was excellent--very personable.
The call went well (see questions below) and at the end, I asked what the recruiter's gut feel was for whether or not they'd put me forward.
The recruiter was very good at explaining next steps, especially what to expect from the hiring manager (the next step) and that hiring manager's expectation for the role.
The call with the hiring manager was setup within a week. A video call was scheduled.
The hiring manager knew what they wanted, and I could tell from the onset that I was behind the eight-ball. As I'd been out of the market for a while and the position had a lot of interested candidates, it became apparent that I would not be able to "hit the ground running" as others might be able to
On the fly, I tried to sell them on their investment in what I could do over what I've done in the past. As the position is not 100% about the tech--you need to be able to present/convince/do-pre-sales, I thought the fact that I could make up for some lacking areas with others.
The feeling I got was was that they want someone who can do the job right now, w/o any on-boarding/training and that there are people in the market that can fill that roll.
That said, I could be wrong, as I've not received the canned "we are moving forward with other candidates" email yet.
It was interesting, for me, that the recruiter seemed to latch on to mentions of anything related to VMware's EPIC2 culture, when the hiring manager was laser focused on what I could do right now, skills wise. Obviously, there is a balance to be struck.
All in all, VMware, in my experience, is a very professional organization, and their hiring process is well organized.
