Cisco Interview Questions, Process, and Tips for Freshers

Round: Test
Experience: MCQ type. No negative marking.
Question paper had two sections. 
(i) General Aptitude 
(ii) Technical
The technical section had 50 questions and out of which 40 were from electrical questions. I was able to answer only the CS part and marked randomly for other elec based questions.
Tips: Do well in your aptitude section and CS section.

Round: Interview
Experience: I was hired for Network Consultant profile. So they asked me questions from networks. The questions were simple. If they are opting for programmer profile, they would be asked questions from C and data structures.

Round: Interview
Experience: They were assessing how I would react in case of difference in opinion with manager, etc etc.

General Tips: I started my preparation in October. I was doing all the learning writing tests. :)
It would definitely help students if they start their preparation by August.
Skill Tips: I have no idea on how they shortlisted students for written test. For the interview, it was based upon our written
test performance. Since they came on day 3, they had a waiting list of students for the interview.


Started solving previous year question papers. Almost all companies follow the same pattern which they had in the previous years. You might even get the same questions. Start solving puzzles and previous year question papers from August. There would be flurry of companies coming for CS and it would be very difficult if one starts preparing late. Earlier the preparation the better.

Important for CS students: C, C++, Data structures and Algorithms, OS.

Few companies ask students to write programs on paper. The best way to prepare would be start solving
programming questions.
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: WRITTEN TESTTotal Duration : 1 hour
NO NEGATIVE MARKING
Total 3 sections ::First section is COMPULSORY for both Electronics and Computer Science students.
Second Section is of Software.
Third is of Hardware.I M P O R T A N T :: ONLY ONE SECTION AMONG 2nd OR 3rd need to be answered like for you, you will give the answers of Section 2.30 questions in each section :::There was no bound of time for a particular section. You can
devote any amount of time to any section but max. limit is 1 hr for
the whole paper.1. All basics they asked me
2. Binary sort explain line by line
3. Insertion sort how does it differ from binary sort explain line by line (they provide rough sheets)
4. OSI layers and functions
5. Microcroprocessors
6. Tress, program on insertion of node in single linked list
7. Pre order, inorder, post order explain with examples
8. Sliding window protocol explain
9. Write the of a C program for printing numbers into words such as 123 (one hundred and twenty three)
10. About my project fully explained and its applications and some qs on that
Duration: 60 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I am giving you the interview questions, what they want to know from those questions, what are ideal answers. I GAVE 15 COMPANIES AND CLEARED 11 APTITUDE EXAMS, 4 G.D., FACING 9 TIMES INTERVIEWER.AT LAST "CiScO" WAS THERE FOR ME.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Sir: Tell me something about you which is not written here in your resume?
ME: I was 1st in district in scholarship exam in 7th, 11th in state in exam.Ideal: Just tell anything which will impress them (may be false) but with confidence. (they don't know anything about you in campus placement they don't see your file also) as I was class representative. (if you ware part of any event say "i was head of that event" but if you are so confident then only)THEIR AIM:- To know about any new quality which will differenciate from other candiates and force them to take you in company.Sir: Where will you see after 2 years ? or what are your future plan?
ME: I am going to give GRE.(For first interview)Ideal: I want to be Project Manager OR Team Leader.
THEIR AIM:- How much long you will remain in company (they will take candidate with long time company employer)(#* SO DON'T SAY GRE, CAT, GET etc.*# )(REMEMBER)Sir: What is your weakness?
ME: I get fustrated very easily.Ideal: I push my teammates to do work fast. but i got to know that everyones speed is different so i give work to them accordingly.THEIR AIM:- To get know about your weakness is it really harmful to company, but we should represent them as those are our strong points. end with but and tell what you r doing about recovering from weakenessSir: Why should we hire you?
ME: I'm brilliant, hardworking.Ideal: I am good organiser (as I mentioned write in resume fake achievement as head of gaming comity in college event. it shows your organisational quality which company wants.) i like to make friends where ever i go (this shows your ability to mix up with team) i was class representative in last year (this shows your leadership quality)THEIR AIM:- GOOD LEADER, GOOD TEAMMATESir: Do you have any questions?
ME: How your company is growing so fast?Ideal: Same (this question give honour to them. they will get happy.)Sir: Why do you want to get in this company.
ME: This is my dream company. I think i can grow with your company much faster.Ideal: SAME (THIS WILL BOOST YOUR IMAGE)Sir: What do you expect from company?
ME: Friendly and challenging environment.Ideal: SAME..

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: GD: Just starting each time or summarising is not sufficient. try for best.1. Just speak twice but such that none will talk at that time. i.e. everyone will listen you.2. Just keep on shaking your head to show your listening and agree with him. so at your time he will certainly listen you.3. If everyone try to speak making fish market then just keep on speaking "friends please calm down, it's getting fish market. try to speak one at a time. plz friends plz"4. If someone wants to talk but not getting chance then raise your voice n say "plz, one of our friend also want to share something"n then point your hand towards him (not finger)5. Try for start and summarise (yes for both) if not possible them minimum secondly.I really used this at last n got placed on same day. I edited my resume n entered like "Completed Basic Course of Art Of Living (this was fake), Certified course of discover yourself (i had certificate)" and i was asked about that only in interview and got selected in CisCo....BEST OF LUCK (with confidence)

College Name: BITS MESRA

Round: Test
Experience: Hello everyone! Cisco came to our campus for full time hiring of final year students. They had shortlisted candidates for the interviews on the basis of written test which consisted of MCQs.There were 50 questions out which there were 20 aptitude questions, 15 questions on C, Computer Networking and Data Structures and the rest 15 questions were from digital electronics, BJT, CMOS and Microprocessor. We were given only 1 hour for this.

Since, the cutoff was quite high, therefore one has to concentrate both on accuracy and speed.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
Experience: The interview started with the introduction, after which he moved on to my projects and asked about the data structures and algorithms used to implement the project. After then he asked questions from Operating Systems like Coffman’s Rule, context-switching, processes versus threads, interrupts, semaphore, mutual exclusion, concurrency, deadlock, etc. After then he asked some questions from Computer Networking like TCP versus UDP, what happens when you type a URL, flags of TCP, ping and traceroute, etc.

After then he asked me how much you rate yourself in C and further asked me to write a code for insertion sort using linked list. Then he asked me to look at the code and search for the corner cases and errors if any. Actually, my function had a void return type and he was worried that my head pointer is not getting updated. But I answered him that it will get updated as my head pointer was globally declared and he was satisfied. Then he asked if I had any questions for him. I asked him 2-3 questions and later I came to know that he was my alumni and then we further talked about the life at Cisco.

Round: HR INTERVIEW
Experience: This interview of mine was taken by the Production Manager. He started-off as if the round was HR, by asking me my introduction, strengths and weaknesses, why Cisco? , etc.

He, then, asked me about the questions covered in the last round. Then he had given me a question to code. The question was that you have been given an array of length N and window of length M which slides over the array. You have to compute the average of the elements in the window for each movement. Initially I started off with the brute force and ultimately reached to the solution he wanted. He then asked me the advantage of starting from brute force. I replied that at-least I have a solution to work upon.

Then he asked me the designing questions (I didn’t remember what exactly the question was) and further asked me to code a trie. He then asked me about hash-maps and heaps. And ultimately he asked me whether I had any questions to ask.

College Name: NA