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.
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Oct 2011
Interview
There are no self-introduction part or CV questions. It went straight forward to a program analysis question, asking me to figure out all the possible errors in that program. Some are obvious syntax error. But there are some errors that are not obvious and require a sound programming foundation. There might be some other questions after this but when I failed to solve this question. The interviewer showed no further interest and stopped the interview. The 1 on 1 interview is stressful and the interviewer hope to find someone who are really experienced with programming, regardless of what programming language he / she is using.
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