I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (Milpitas, CA) in Oct 2015
Interview
Terrible experience!!!! After the interview, the hiring manger calls and extends an offer verbally, and then for a week no response from them at all. Tried reaching them via email, phone, absolutely no response. Finally the recruiter is available on his mobile and he says they cannot give a certain Grade , and a certain salary, I still say its ok please give me an offer letter. He says he will get back to me by the EOD and no response. Next week I call the recruiter again and now he says the req is closed and in turn blames me for not responding on time.
Clearly, looks like the hiring manger extended an offer but later they changed their mind and they have no idea how to communicate this to me, so did all sorts of things to make me drop the ball and when I did not they say the req is closed.
Did not expect this from a reputable organization like Cisco. Terrible , terrible hiring process!! I feel interviewees should be give some respect when they take time to come onsite and spend a day.
No point taking names, but I just wish this would be addressable and not be repeated for future candidates.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Data structure/algo questions and some low level questions
Standard panel, very simple leetcodes. reverse linked list kind of vibe s . I was literarly asked about how a linked list is structured and reversing it. there was almost no friction which I was shocked by one of the reason I did not accept
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.
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.