I recently had a day of 6 face-to-face interviews at Microsoft, UK. I had to submit 3 programming solutions in advance and take part in 1 Internet whiteboard coding session beforehand. During each of the 6 interviews I had to answer 2 coding questions. In total that makes (6 * 2) + 3 + 1 = 16 solutions.
I messed up the last solution at the end of the day because I was getting tired of answering questions. For another question, I choose to answer verbally rather than write on the whiteboard. So in total I messed up 2 solutions out of 16. My apologises if the number of technical questions I was asked is slighly less than 16. My recollection is that the interviewers mostly asked 2 technical questions per interview.
Two weeks later the Human Resources person told me I didn't get the job. She asked a good time for her to phone me with the feedback. I wasn't really that interested as I thought I would only get a blanket comment. I said I was just interested in getting my travel expenses paid. Anyway she asked again about the interview feedback and I agreed.
The next day she phoned me. I had to put up with a long tirade of criticisms. However apart from the one question I messed up at the end, the criticisms weren't really techical in nature.
I was told:
1) I hadn't viewed an animation on YouTube that the manager spoke of. The manager may have mentioned this in an early interview, but if it was vital I viewed it why wasn't I sent the URL by email?
2) I had paused for about 20 seconds before answering one question.
3) During one optimisation question for which I answered correctly, my offence was to make a comment before I gave the correct answer. I only said that computers can loop to a million pretty quick. But then I gave a good answer and the interviewer didn't disagree with the answer I gave.
This is truly a WTF. They don't care about whether I answered the questions or not. They only care how long I paused before giving the answer or whether I made a comment beforehand.
During lunch as I was trying to eat my chips, the interviewer asked me what my previous managers thought of me. I explained in that job I had 7 different project managers and 3 different people managers. In the end I said that one manager had commented on the fact I did lots of things done quickly - at the time she noticed I had taken part in 3 different projects and everything was done on time.
However this was not good enough for the Human Resources woman. By making a comment before answering properly, I had not answered the question directly. I was only trying to make the point it is a difficult question question to answer as I had so many different project managers. I was concerned that I would not answer the question properly if I only said what 1 or 2 managers thought of me.
I suppose Microsoft must protect themselves in case people take legal action against them for discrimination. I have no intention of doing this. But this is going to far. They crossed the line between feedback and being mean.
One other thing. During one interview I was asked to write code for a Connect 4 game. I never played when younger. After a minute or so of writing code, I realised I had make a mistake and started over again. In the end I gave the correct answer. However the manager at the end of the interviews asked me about previous interviews and I mentioned this mistake. The manager mocked me for writing code before finding out all the specifications.
The Human Resources woman said one reason I didn't get the job is because I couldn't give the manager at the end correct feedback about how I did in previous interviews. This is just self-referential nonsense.
During the telephone feedback, I heard the HR woman typing. She must have been typing what I said in reply to the lengthy negative feeback.
Also during the face-to-face interviews, some interviewers were making continuous handwritten notes of everything I said. In the last interview, the manager spent the whole time typing. He must have been recording everything I said.