Being on the end of a headhunting call is always flattering, but probably more so when it’s the biggest company in the world, wanting to pay you money to sit in their lovely office and do your thing.
Former senior director of product marketing at Apple, Michael Gartenberg, has revealed exactly what it feels like to be on the end of a recruitment approach from the iPhone giants in a recent podcast for The Mac Observer.
Gartenberg was working as an analyst at the time, and at the end of a regular conference call, vice president Greg Jozwiak asked him if it would be okay to call later. “Apple VPs don’t call analysts just to schmooze. VPs don’t talk to analysts unless there are two PR people in the room,” explained Gartenberg. “I’m going, ‘what on earth did I do that I have totally annoyed Joz?’”
Later than night, after stewing on it all day, Gartenberg finally got the call: “’Look, I don’t have a lot of time to talk right now, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. Would you like to come out here and work with us?'”
Details, however, were extremely sparse. “I said ‘You’re asking me if I’m interested in a job, if I’m willing to move out to the West Coast, but you’re not willing to tell me what the job is?’”
“He goes, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Phil [Schiller] will give you a call in the next couple of days.”
After flying out to California and attending a few meetings, the role finally emerged – senior director for worldwide marketing. “The next day I got a call from the recruiter – and she said Phil thinks you’re great, the team wants you. When can you start working?”
He had to get used to the culture quickly – partially down to the way Apple does its marketing. “One of things that was said to me is that, ‘you’re used to being the guy in the room talking to the press,'” Gartenberg said. “‘You have to understand, Apple speaks with one voice, and you’re not the voice.'”
Despite no longer working for the company, Gartenberg didn’t elaborate too much on his role. “What happens at Apple tends to stay at Apple – you don’t see a whole lot of Apple employees write books.”
Although he did reveal one interesting insight: “This is a company that lives in details itself. I remember the first day I sent someone an email. I got it back, and at the end of it, it said ‘P.S. spelling counts here.'” The offending typo was “hte” rather than “the”.
That may not sound too encouraging to some (although as a pedant myself, it sounds great), overall Gartenberg is extremely positive. “Apple is probably one of the best places in the world to work,” he enthused.
You can listen to the whole podcast at The Mac Observer.
Images: Nez and Jamie McCall used under Creative Commons
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