Interviewed with couple of teams on different jobs.
1. On one team people looked good and I liked it. But the viability of the group seemed shaky. Spent time and energy at the interview process including giving a presentation over a conference call. The Hiring manger commented that I did a great job and would respond back soon because of some travel plans. I did not hear anything back when I contacted the recruiting team. Found that the hiring manager had moved to another company in a couple of months.
2. Had a phone interview with another team. The interviewer seemed not to care much about the product or technology and did not seem to know much anyway. But started with the question, "how do you know the hiring manager?". I said I do not know the HM personally (there goes my chance!). Then followed "oh, I have been working for him for x years at companies A and B". Despite my good answers, I realized what it takes to work here is not good talent.
I applied through other source. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Feb 2010
Interview
The hiring process is a bit intense. I came to Cisco via an acquisition and still went through a rather thorough interview process. I was interviewed by, HR 3 Director level folks across BU's as well as the hiring manager. Most questions were around culture, values and work ethic.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What did I think about returning to a technical position. I had thought they would keep me in sales but they based the decision on years of experience