I met with someone at a university event and followed up with him through email. He set up a phone interview with two people of the group. They both were very nice and the interview was on the line of trying to understand what are my strengths and weaknesses, especially since I have a non typical background for the group. They asked for some example of code I had written and promised they would follow up with me, no matter what. Not hearing back after 10 days or so, I shot an email, after which I was called by the same person, inviting me to visit the research center for a full day. There I talked with lots of people from the group in a very relaxed and open environment, the whole interview process till this point had been really great. The interview went fairly well and definitely some people were very interested in me. At the end I was told again that they would let me know as soon as possible if they were going to make me an offer or not, as communication about this is IBM policy. After 2 weeks I did not hear anything and try to contact them with no result. I waited another 3 weeks (5 weeks total after the interview) and tried again. In half an hour I received a one line email just saying they were not going to make me an offer. At the request of some feedback, I was told that IBM does not discuss its hiring policy. Nice interview experience, but very disappointing last phase. I do not necessarily expect to get an offer, but I would think that I should be told if that would happen or not as soon as the decision is taken, especially when in the final stage.