At first this was a very straight forward and quick process. I got an e-mail from the HR Admin telling me that a recruiter wanted to an on the phone interview. Talked with the recruiter and then subsequently set up a phone interview with the hiring manager. All this was in about a 2 week time frame from applying.
Within the week, I was onsite for an interview. I went through 4 separate interviews with different members of that team that had different roles. The interview questions themselves weren't too difficult, pretty standard "tell us about yourself," questions about experiences, and some questions to test your technical skills, again pretty standard for a tech company.
After the interview is where my impression turned sour, so I follow-up with the recruiter to figure out the next steps. He tells me that the team is interested in moving forward with my candidacy (and even told me he thought I was in the lead for it) and they are planning to finish interviews and make a decision within by the end of the following week. I followed up a couple weeks later and I get a similar response, "we have our final interview early next week and make a decision." About 3-4 weeks after my on-site interview, the recruiter finally said the team will be making a decision on a specific date and then *poof* he disappears. I had a couple of follow-ups and no response from the recruiter. The whole time I just got the feeling that the recruiter was stringing me along just in case another candidate didn't sign with them. I understand if I don't get the position and I'll respect your decision, just let me know like an adult instead pulling a Houdini to avoid some kind of conflict.
My impressions may be more of the recruiter than the company itself, but in my mind, the recruiter is a representative of the company.