Cisco reviews

4.1

81% would recommend to a friend

(33,652 total reviews)
avatar

Chuck Robbins

78% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

Cisco has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 33,652 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Cisco employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

34K reviews
2.0
May 27, 2010

Needs alot of work

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good comp and benefits Good competent individual contributors Financial strength and stability of company Telecommuting available to some Many types of organizations and positions

Cons

Execution driven, poor analysis and planning ability or processes at the Company. Where this does exist, it is not really leveraged. The focus is tactical and execution oriented. Non-existent decision-making or accountability. Continuing trend to use committees to make decisions, which continues to promote lack of individual decision-making and accountability by the right people. When all goes wrong, targeted scapegoating is the result of this framework. Middle management is not competent. Many grew up at Cisco during boom (late 90's) and were promoted to mgt (due to low unemployment) without experience, competencies, training or solid role models. No real progress on improving this gap. Fire, aim, ready mentality. Lots of fire drills, false starts, rework. Lots of posturing and heavy politics. If you can stand to "hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil" you will do fine, though you may not help the company. Bonus system promotes dishonesty. Sr. Mgrs and above get significant bonuses. No wonder they are possessed with everyone creating our "smoke and mirrors" deliverables. No work/life balance. My Director verbatim "you will never find a job at Cisco that offers work life balance, so don't bother looking. All Cisco employees are expected to work 60+hours per week." At that rate, I can do better financially and personally working for the defunct state of CA. HR is invisible. When I asked, my manager would not give me the HR contact and suggested it was useless to get them involved in what would have benefited from HR consultation. No one in our group knows who our HR rep is as we have never been told, seen or heard from anyone in HR. There is no place to go to look it up, as far as I know. Limited opportunity to transition to other groups. My VP has prevented 2 attempts I have made to move to a different group, even when a job was available for me.

1.0
May 8, 2010

Cisco is "the man".

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Of course the pay is acceptable, they are a billion dollar company after all. But that can also be a chain to keep employees from being able to leave. Senior management make much, much more than your average engineer. That is ridiculous. Benefits are also quite complete, but should be standard at any company anyway.

Cons

Too many departments heads who don't seem to do anything but manage numbers. The ratio of overseas employees or recent immigrants is substantial. I'm for creating opportunities equally, but it's obvious that foreign workers will usually sacrifice for the job, where locals will lean toward their personal lives. This creates an uncomfortable work environment, unfortunate when working in America.

1.0
Feb 28, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good work environment and strong techincial stuff.

Cons

Too big a company, not enough opp to grow.

Viewing 514 - 516 of 33,652 Reviews

Glassdoor has 39,411 Cisco reviews submitted anonymously by Cisco employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cisco is right for you.