I have friends who work at IBM and I haven't heard anything good about big blue in the past few years about them. The entire management seems to have no clue what they're doing. They went through a huge investment period during which they expanded way to much, after that they had to tighten the belt to meet the stock targets and let go of a lot of experienced people and promoted young people way too quick with too little resources for them to succeed (despite them being more than capable of succeeding). Leading to a very bitter and cut throat culture.

I applied a few years back (during the investment splurge), they seemed very enthusiastic, several friends who worked for them confirmed that I would be a pretty good fit in the team/culture.

I nailed the challenging IBM IPAT test with a pretty decent score, I called them twice to ask what the next step would be and they promised me that I would be invited soon. After the second call without a fixed date I forgot all about it and found a better job. I had a friend ask his manager about the status of my solicitation and his manager told him that their team was not a priority for HR because they were on schedule and under budget (thus able to hire new developers) to meet their requirements/release. In other words, if you are doing well you're being ignored until your team screws up.

The called me six months(!!!) after I took the test and almost begged me to come talk to me. I asked my friend how his team was doing and they slipped up on the schedule because colleges and budget were pulled of the release until it was obvious that they couldn't meet the requirements/release. Guess that explained their desperate phone call. He couldn't recommend that I took them up on the job offer and asked if we had any openings :)

Considering what I've heard it doesn't surprise me that some parts of the organisation are so dysfunctional.