Cisco Interview Experience | On-Campus 2021

Round 1

CGPA cutoff is 7.0 and no backlogs, from my campus around 400+ students applied it is open for CSE and ECE streams. Eligible students had a test on HackerRank(60 mins). The test consists of 25 MCQ (no negative marking) and 1 coding question.

• MCQ – Based on networks(10 q approx) ,aptitude(5 q approx) and some questions related to cloud and encryption.
• Coding Question – You are given a number, at a time either you can increase a number by 1 or decrease by 1 it is considered as one move find the minimum number of moves required to convert a given into a lucky number. A number is called lucky if all the digits in it are even.

Note: 

• In the coding question, we can only check if our code is running on only 2 tests cases they might have added more test cases at the backend for evaluating the complexity of the code.
• I solved the coding questions with an optimized approach and confident of 15 MCQ. I cleared this round.
• Around 81 students are shortlisted after this round.

Round 2 (Technical Round – 45 mins)

• In all the rounds interviewers are so nice like they can’t be nicer so cool. They always wanted to see your best in the interview so they are really friendly.
• Mine started with a formal introduction about myself after that they asked me why didn’t I mention networks in my technical skills in my resume if you know you’re attending a networking company.
• What all things you know about networks? what is ISO and TCP/IP? what is ICMP? what is the ping and traceroute? some more questions on traceroute? Gateway protocols, about AS, DNS, session layer, Encryption, and keys, DHCP, and some more questions…
• What are your troubleshooting steps when the requested page is not displaying? about TTL, about DNS cache poisoning and steps to secure it, and a few more scenario-based questions.
• Why CISCO and few questions related to my hobbies and awards.

Round 3( Managerial Round – 35 mins)

• Formal introduction, project discussion, link-layer vs network-layer, switch vs router which is smart?
• Link-state and distance-vector algorithm, Dijkstra’s Algorithm and time complexity, BGP.
• What is the best searching algorithm?
• He explained about Role requirements and their challenges asked me to convince him that I was capable of doing it.
• If you switch on your laptop and the screen is black what will you do? What if it is a mobile?
• Team work-related HR questions, and few most common HR questions like why CISCO, why this particular role, etc…

HR( Final Round -15 mins)

• Formal Introduction asked me to tell 2 things that I learned from the project and again why cisco, why this role?. Discussed CTC’s different components of it, perks, and bonuses. Location preferences etc…
• Around 30 people cleared the HR round but only 20 people were offered different roles.

Verdict: Selected

Tips: Be confident, don’t bluff, If the question asked is new to you just think for 30 sec before answering and the most important deciding factor is COMMUNICATION SKILLS there are some students who are technically sound but got rejected because of lack of communication skills.

All the Best!!!