I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Nov 2011
Interview
They came to our campus to recruit MBA grads for Product Management positions. There was one interview (unlike the usual 2 back-to-back interviews) that lasted for 1 hour. The conversation was pretty relaxed, but not unofficial. The questions were: Why Cisco? What are the biggest Cisco competitors? Challenges? Case: Cisco wants to expand in China, what do you recommend?
Basically, they need someone with a tech background - even for marketing positions, as the products are very complex from a technical point of view. Besides that they need you to be able to think in a structured manner and be aware of the current developments/trends (i.e. the Cloud, Virtualization, BYOD, etc). The more you know about Juniper, Huawei, Riverbed, HP - the better.
After about two weeks they contact you and if you were chosen, invite to an interview in the company. Then it's 2 to 3 more interviews with your future boss and other related people. About 3-4 days after that you get a final decision and if you were chosen, start a negotiating process.
In general, all the people are nice, they don't try to see how you operate under pressure/hunger/other pervert tactics that I heard from people from other companies.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Who are Cisco's most important rivals?
The question is a bit tricky since you have to understand which group the interviewer comes from. Since Cisco competes on so many fronts, the rivals are almost everybody - Microsoft, IBM, Google, HP, Dell, VMWare, Alcatel-Lucent, etc. However you should focus on those which are most important to the interviewer. Bonus points will be given if you can actually explain why the firms you chose to talk about are more relevant competitors to this business unit than others.
I applied online. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Feb 2026
Interview
Very good process... in depth and met with several leaders and project team members. Good experience, and the team was reall welcoming. Highly recommend as a place to work and build a career.
Interview with Cisco was nice and human. HR was really good at their job, quite pleasant. All important informations were handed out upfront and I felt like the process will not be too long.
There are about 3 rounds with the last round being 3-4 interviews. I began with a phone screening then moved to next round, with all different. Last round were 3 behavioral with one presentation