I applied through college or university. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Cisco in Sep 2014
Interview
I was asked a technical question on Machine Learning during the recruiting at a Career Fair straight away while reviewing my Resume. The question was on the possibility of separating houses for a Realtor into various clusters. I answered the question by proposing a Decision Tree (ID3 Algorithm) or a Linear Separator, depending on the number of features that the test data had.
I then was offered a phone interview, where I was a standard question regarding Data Structures and Algorithms. (Can't spit out the details, sorry).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The question regarding the Data Structures was difficult because at best I could get a run-time of O(kn), or O(nlog(n)), but that wasn't close enough to O(n), which is what they wanted.
They care about your skills, rather than your background. They have a template which they provide and you got to fill that, everyone is provided a unique number. You are instructed not to disclose any of your personal details in the due course of your interview.
The interview process was two rounds. The first round was a behavioral interview. Straightforward questions, like tell me about the most technically challenging project you have worked on. The second round was a system design interview.
I applied online. I interviewed at Cisco in May 2026
Interview
Series of 4 interviews, First screening with HR Recruiter, reviewed resume and qualifications, second was hiring manager, reviewed experience and skills. Technical interview with team as a panel type interview, Last with hiring Director.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical questions on networking. Experience with work enviroment