I interviewed on Friday for a product marketing job. I hadn’t been wild about it—it’s a technology I didn’t find particularly exciting, in an Israeli-run company in Foster City.
You might think that you can’t be sniffing at boring products these days, but if I’m going to market them, I have to find something about them that’s interesting. I've never learned that all-important skill of faking sincerity.
Moreover, while I completely admire what the Israelis have done carving out a thriving nation in an inhospitable land surrounded by people who want to drive them into the sea, I’ve found that their management style is…abrasive. (The one may be connected with the other.)
And, finally, Foster City is about 23 miles up Highway 101, which the recruiter who connected me with the opening referred to as “an ugly commute”.
That’s an understatement.
When I got to the actual interview I learned that the solution is actually a lot more fascinating than I'd understood, and I really liked the hiring manager a lot. But, as it happens, the number one item on her “must-have” list is deep experience marketing into corporate IT departments, and I’ve never done that. It’s not that I couldn’t learn it pretty quickly, it’s that she needs someone who already knows that segment and can lock onto them like a lamprey.
So I thought about it on the crawl home on Friday, all day Saturday and most of Sunday, as I was trying to compose my thank-you note. It turns out it’s a lot harder to write a thanks-but-no-thanks email than a thanks-and-will-you-give-me-the-job email.
I’m hoping I don’t have to gain a lot of experience in this line.
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