Cisco Systems – “Cisco is a great large company to work for, but you may be working more than you expected.”

Pros

At Cisco you can find a great team of people to work with, people who are committed to making their products the best, people with a lot of integrity. Cisco offers some of the best benefits of any high-tech company in the world, and they encourage people to explore opportunities within the company that can help you further your career.

Cons

At Cisco you may find your manager stretching your limits to complete tasks. Although you can find satisfaction in breaking your perceived limits to workload, you may find yourself working weekends to keep up.

In its effort to streamline operations, Cisco has made some aspects of working at Cisco very impersonal. For example, the use of Telepresence in some building lobbies means that you do not see a person in the lobby when you enter and exit the building. When you start a job at Cisco, you do not interact with anyone in Human Resources (HR) because the process is automated over the Internet. When you leave a job, you do not have any interaction with HR.

Advice to Senior Management

Each year, management presents a new set of goals for its employees to meet. The expectation is that everyone will complete a task related to each of the goals. Not all the goals relate to an employee's tasks. Management should ask employees to select only those goals that make sense within their job role.