The hiring manager did a good job of administering a verbal quiz of "What If's". For example, "if Exchange 2010 does (whatever) what is causing that to happen?" I didn't know, but I am a ridiculously quick study; he 'there is no runway,' so that ended it the interview

Just came here to take out some of my frustration and aware people that they don’t fall prey to what I went through at Dell interviewing for last three months. March - Got a call through a recruiter reaching out to me for a Senior Systems Engineer role serving the central midwest areas. Talked regarding the salary ~220k ( 160 k base and rest in sales incentives ) and everything that goes well with the compensation. Was told that Its in the ballpark. Talked about stock equity and was told its on a case by case basis. I am at a senior role and it made sense to make a move w.r.t compensations April- Whole month went through a 6-7 different interviews ( individual / panel/ presentations ). At the end, I was told that they really liked me / technical interviews and started talks of verbal offer. The verbal offer came to be 40-50 k less than what we agreed on. (133 k base and 40-45 k as sales incentive ). When i tried to negotiate , i was told that they will work to get me the number that they agreed on. May- The whole month , they kept on blindsiding me that they have to take more interviews for HR purposes and kept on delaying. Finally after a whole month and several follow ups , the manager told me that they went another candidate in another geography. When i reached out to recruiter, he mentioned that it was due to the salary and they couldn’t work with that number ( while it was to be precise the same number that he gave to me ) What could have been an easy negotiation, they tried to blindfold me for months and frustrated till the last moment to lie. Its frustrating to see a company like Dell behaving in this manner and working like cheapskates while boasting in the industry 91 billion dollar revenue industry. At its core, they are still behaving not more than a bodyshop who try to belittle people without any respect. I hope folks at Dell or who want to apply at Dell should know about this on how their managers and recruiters are playing in the industry.