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. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Oct 2008
Interview
I got an interview on campus. Basic questions about myself and the company: "Tell me about yourself", "How do I know if you are the right person for my company?"...No technical
Then 1 month later I got an invitation including hotel and flight ticket to San Jose for 2 days.
It started with a dinner with Cisco employees.
The next days, we are divided into 3-person groups. Each group will be interview individually by 3 other engineers. They basically asked about my group projects. Gave some technical questions about Java like "What is inheritance?". The last guy will ask harder questions in C programming skill "Write a code to reverse the words in a string?" "Optimize it"
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