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 university. I interviewed at Cisco
Interview
In first round, there was one coding questions, I guess around 25-30 MCQs. First round was conducted online in Hackerrank. They are mostly concentrated on basics or fundamentals. In our college they shortlisted few for next round, of those some did all mcqs correctly and some did only coding, some did both. But I would say to attend both. MCQs can be mastered using strong fundamentals and coding u need practice.
This was through my college so they offered two job roles: One is software engineer and another one is consulting engineer
This was conducted in the month of August.
I couldn't get selected for next round. But I heard from my friends that there were two technical rounds, one MR round and one HR round conducted in a single day.
Overall experience was very good and even my friends opinion was the same.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Their questions were mostly on main subjects of CS and IS branches, like OS,ST,DBMS and Networks, there were two questions on Machine learning too. I remember very few,as I didn't concentrate more on mcqs, topics related to semaphore and some data structures related questions were also asked. Basically all were on subjects which were taught and all were related to fundamentals of those.
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