I applied online last month, and got an automated email asking me to complete a cognitive test (which Biden should try solving) and a technical programming challenge.

I had two weeks to submit both challenges, but I wraped them up in about three days after I received the email. The congitive test was about five mini-games involving both numbers and logic. They can be quite hard but most of them (except one) are manageable. The technical challenge was easy-ish, with one programming question and one data-related question. It was a regression problem.

For both questions, I passed all the test cases on Hackerrank. All of them. It's a 3hr challenge but it took me less than 2hrs to complete both questions. The key is not to stress out when you look at the timer. I have to say that I prepared for 'tougher' questions, so the ones I encountered were manageable.

After submitting the challenge, I haven't heard from IBM (it's been two weeks). There is no recruiter to contact as well, as I got all my emails from the 'noreply' @. I was kind of confident as I knew the challenge was 100% correct (I even tested it later with another dataset after the challenge ended). I was very proud of it as based on my research, other people who did not complete all the test cases were nevertheless selected to move forward.

Stupifcation: I went to IBM's website for something totally different, and I saw that I could check the status of my application. Result: not selected. This was an immense surprise, as geniuenly, I don't know what else to do? 100% accuracy on the challenge isn't enough. What a disgrace. I also did pretty well on the cognitive test. So honestly, why? There is no recruiter to get in touch with, and I still haven't received an email from IBM.

This company seems to be an absolute mess. Did anyone encounter the same experience with IBM?