Cisco Systems Limited Reviews

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Master of your own destiny, company is getting its act together, feel much more a part of 'One Cisco', opportunities for promotion and advancement increasing. Fantastic roadmap, good customer alignment. More of a 'can do' attitude than recent years.

Cons – Don't trust the senior leadership enough to feel secure in my job, high amount of 'mandatory' internal meetings, very high workload (due to being under-resourced). Compensation still too stock price oriented for SEs - stock options and RSU don't make up for lower base salary in this economic climate. Not attracting top talent any more. Some colleagues are of questionable ability.

Advice to Senior Management – Look to be more customer focussed, focus on attracting top talent.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Outstanding product portfolio
Significant presence in the IT market
Client credibility
Global operational capability
Internal resource pool
Financial rewards
London office location
Calibre of most of the service delivery personnel

Cons – Complex internal systems
Quality of management not as high as one would expect
Compared to other IT companies there is little opportunity for personal development
Legacy approach to support services is archaic
Services product portfolio and supporting tools are far to complex. Cisco tries to fit what they have to meet the client needs rather than build exactly what the client wants.

Advice to Senior Management – The numbers are important but they should not be the prime focus. Get out and see more clients.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great place to work, A large corporate with very good benefits.

Cons – Small cog in a big machine - middle management are under motivated and over payed. Thus lack the dedication required to support your personal career growth. The work life balance doesn't exsist for many, but this is compounded by the fact that others in the same teams and roles get away with doing very little, and it is never picked up by management.

Advice to Senior Management – Discussions with management end with management telling what they think you want to hear and then do nothing to back it up over the next cycle. Move middle management around - especially in the support roles.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – There are plenty of good people and a decent salary range. There are good benefits and an innovative culture that allows flexible working to a degree though there are nice office locations too that have plenty of drop-in workspaces. you can get a lot of autonomy which leads to good prospects to move internally or take on new projects.

Cons – higher management is slightly over-heavy though this is getting better, a tendency for people to stay a long time so upward movement can sometimes be difficult

Advice to Senior Management – move around more, create the space for people to grow

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The engineers have access to great products

Cons – Marketing and other departments treat engineers with low respect

Advice to Senior Management – Stop wasting time arguing on team branding slogans and get real

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for less than a year

Pros – Opportunity to work on exciting, high impact projects with teams of intelligent and interesting people while having a relatively high compensation.

Cons – bad management
stress full wok
Occasional long hours, lots of traveling, intensive work environment, high intellectual demand,

Advice to Senior Management – Need to create assessment criteria for values during hiring and evaluation of current employees to avoid incidents like Galleon in the future.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great brand name and strong foundation on what used to be a great company. Lots of flexibility if you have the right manager and can persuade them what you're doing is right. The opportunity to work with some very bright people (harder to find these days) and with leading edge technology. Open corporate culture.

Cons – More redundancies creating a culture of fear and resentment. Job and career uncertainty by continual hiring freezes and arbitrary changes in expense policy. Sustained effective pay cuts such as reduction in restricted stock, no more company-provided internet, no more soft beverages, unreasonable goals (taxes) for technical people not based on merit. Reduction in hiring quality and talent recognition.

No one will tell you these are the glory days. They're long gone. This is a company that pretends to itself it's still cool and fun. But it really, really isn't.

Advice to Senior Management – Either accept you're being run by bean-counters and rebrand the whole outfit to a modern IBM or sack the thousands of SVPs ruining the company and make it a great place to work again. Stop laying off people every year and let us plan great things without constantly being told we can't.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cisco Systems Limited

Pros – Culture is pretty good !!

Cons – there is some politics in office

Advice to Senior Management – HR dept should be improved

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Cisco Systems Limited

Pros – Good people and customer base

Cons – Decision making very US dominated

I worked at Cisco Systems Limited

Pros – -The people,made some great colleagues over the years and will miss them all.
-The offices, all are nice, modern and well appointed
-Benefits package, although the salaries aren't market-leading the overall benefits package is second to none...pensions,healthcare,insurance,stock purchase,options are all great
-The brand...did anyone ever get fired for buying Cisco ?

Cons – -Middle management decisions often poor and made without insight or employee feedback
-Duplicitous and highly suspicious redundancy process, possibly legally challengable.
-Constant removal of small benefits eg.sodas, fresh fruit, specialty coffee, home broadband etc.. all to help "save" jobs...didn't work
-Too much reliance on "collaborative" technologies, not enough allowance for face to face customer time.

Advice to Senior Management – -Be honest with your employees, actually live the values you put on the employee badge card.
-More respect for those who have been in the company for 10+ years...length of service doesn't equal staleness.