Gave an interview at hiring event few months back for SDE 1/2. It started with a recruiter contacting me. Got an OA, passed all test cases and was called for final round in hiring event. The recruiter was absolutely horrible in scheduling it in first place and my interview was postponed from july to september thanks to it. Now, the interview was bog standard 2 mediums and 2 hards, 3 of 4 ran perfectly with edge cases tested and in 4th one (LC hard) I missed a few. Wasn't thinking of offer at that point, so the rejection mail came as no surprise.

Now the fun begins, I wanted a feedback from my recruiter and was completely ghosted for few weeks, no mails answered, no calls or anything of that sort. I felt like it was OK, maybe it was in his policy not to give any feedback. Then, out of the blue, I got a mail from that guy stating 4 hiring managers were interested in me with no other details provided, and no queries answered and asked me for scheduling. If it was any other company other than the big ones, I'd probably show a middle finger at that point and stop bothering with those guys for rest of my career, but I felt that microsoft was worth another shot. I provided the dates and the interviews were scheduled. The hiring manager that interviewed me congratulated me for clearing the interview. I recieved a rejection a couple of months back, WTAF was this? We had a conversation about my work and experience and if I'd be a proper fit. He told me that he'll get back to recruiter and I'll know results in few days as written in mail. The recruiter started ghosting again and there has been no response or feedback of any sort after that.

To be clear, I have a job in quite a big MNC, and I wasn't really looking for a job, I interviewed to see my market value, and switch if I felt that i was underpaid + microsoft has a great reputation, so it was a good point to start. Passing or failure was irrelavant to me as long as I learnt something out of it, but the experience with my recruiter has been absolutely horrible, and I learnt nothing of it, except for the fact that I can answer 4 leetcode questions in quick succession at accpetable standard by microsoft. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have a stable job, and there will still be a beeline of people who are going to interview with those guys after me. I'm not going to change your mind on it, but I'd really advice any employee here to tell MSFT to get their recruiting act together.

I'm sorry if this comes of as a rant, but trust me, the whole process has been quite annoying for me, which is really a shame considering that I enjoyed interviewing with every technical person involved in whole process and I'd work under either of the managers who I talked to and be happy. I have absolutely nothing to say against microsoft but the recruiter on the other hand, the less I say, the better