Symlinks broken with vmhgfs on fusion
the following solution does not properly fit the original question, as it does not provide a solution to use symlinks in the host as symlinks within guests. nevertheless it can be useful in certain situations, specially for windows guests:

Adding ...

sharedFolderX.followSymlinks = "TRUE"


to your .vmx file, where X stands for any given shared folder in question, makes the symlink transparent to the guest. so the symlinks now show as a regular file or folder within the guest. the mapping take place in the host.

this works for the following versions and above


VMware ACE 2.0.x
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Player 2.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Linux)


as of Dec 24, 2013.

please refer to the VMware KB article Symbolic Links Do Not Work in Folders Shared Between Linux/Mac Hosts and Windows Guests (1007277) for more details and affected/supported versions.



---- edit by Martin (as comments not yet allowed).
---- credits also to Mike as he provided the link to the VMware KB in his answer.