I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Jan 2015
Interview
If you are applying for full-time position you typically get 4 - 5 interviews conducted via WebEx -- Cisco's favorite tool. Be prepared to be asked to turn on your camera (which may or may not happen). It's likely that your interviews will be spread out over several weeks and may include one or two interviewers at the same time. The process is slow any you get little to no feedback which does not mean things didn't go well. During your interview be prepared to share your screen via WebEx and demonstrate skills relevant to position you are applying for: i.e. write some code or demonstrate knowledge of some software tool, etc. One of your interviewers is likely to be department head or a director.
If you are applying for contract position you typically get maximum 2 interviews. The process is a lot less rigorous and you get feedback very quickly. Still be prepared to be on camera via WebEx and to share your screen to demonstrate your skills.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write some code in the language of your choice demonstrating sorting and recursion.
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.