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VOOZH | about |
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VOOZH | about |
Every year Cisco conducts its ideation for students with potential and creativity to be a part of Cisco's team. Students who clear all the interview rounds get an Internship+FTE offer from Cisco. This year the ideation was conducted in phases. Phase 1 was for Technical Consulting Engineer, Consulting Engineer, and Software Consulting Engineer, phase 2 was for Site Reliability Engineer.
Cisco nowadays has a concept of inclusive resume where you have to prepare your resume in such a way that it should not have your college name, degree, branch, cgpa or any personal details like LinkedIn or gmail and you are also not allowed to mention any of these things in the interview. Every candidate was given a candidate code which was its identity during the whole interview process.
ELIGIBILITY
The online test was on 25th June and was conducted on Hacker rank and we were asked to give our role preference. The format for assessment was 52 questions to be solved in 1 hour. The assessment had
I was able to solve most of the questions in the given time.
Results were announced after two weeks and 360 students pan India were shortlisted for the interviews and I was one of them.
All the shortlisted students were given three problem statements and tasked with creating a presentation showing their solutions. The solutions were then discussed during the interviews. We were given one week to complete the presentation, and those who submitted it before the deadline were invited for the interview.
The interview started at around 12:15 pm and there were two interviewers. I greeted both of them and they did the same. They were nice and asked me whether I had my breakfast and lunch. After this the interview started and I was allowed to share my screen and present my solution. The moment I started, the interviewer stopped me and asked me why I chose this topic, after answering that I went on to explain my solutions. The interviewers were cross questioning me on almost every line that I was saying . They just wanted to test whether I was able to defend my solutions or not. The presentation went on for almost 30 mins.
After the presentation one of the interviewer went through my resume and asked me to tell him the work I did in my internship, this discussion went on for another 10-15 mins. Then they asked me my favourite coding language, to which I replied C++ but Java was also mentioned in my resume so he asked me some basic java questions like
I was able to answer all of them
Then the interviewer asked me
I was able to answer all of them
After this the second interviewer took over and asked me whether I am familiar with Computer Networks to which I said yes
Then he asked me
The interviewer was satisfied with my response.
He then continued to ask me some managerial type questions, he made some scenarios and asked me what I will do in these situations. The discussion went on for around 20-25 mins and finally the interview was over.
Though the interview was scheduled for 1 hour but mine went till 1 hour 40 mins.
In the evening, HR shared the list of unsuccessful candidates, and my name was not in the list. Shortly after, I received an email confirming that I had been selected for the managerial round, which was scheduled for July 26th.
The interview began at around 12:00 PM, with a single interviewer who was highly experienced. He was the coolest person I had ever met. He first introduced himself and asked me for my introduction without my name and other details. He was super cool he asked me about do I play games and which is my favourite game. The discussion on gaming went on for 10 mins. He then asked me to briefly tell him about my solutions that I presented in the Technical Interview. After that he asked me to explain my projects and internships.
He began by asking about the clubs I was involved with in college and the work I had done there. After that, he shifted to managerial questions, focusing on scenarios like, "Tell me about a time when..."
He also asked me questions like
Then he started with scenario based questions and we had a long discussion on few of them.
I was not asked any technical questions in this round.
At the end, he asked if I had any questions for him. I asked, "What is a typical day in the life of a consulting engineer?" His detailed response started a small discussion about the role, which lasted for about 7ā8 minutes.
At the end he told me that I am a good candidate and he believes that I will somehow solve any problem that is given to me and he also wished me the best for the next round.
After 1 hour of waiting I was called for the ETR connect round. It was the final round with the HR of Cisco.
The interview began at around 3 PM with the HR. He mentioned that this round was not inclusive, as he already knew everything about me.
Some question he asked were:
He then informed me about the internship stipend and the CTC, and mentioned that the results would be announced in three weeks.
At the end, he asked if I had any questions for him. I asked, "Why is Cisco considered one of the best places to work?"
The interview ended.
About 2.5 weeks later, the results were announced. Out of the 160 candidates who participated in the ETR Connect, only 22 were selected, and they were chosen for Technical Consulting roles. No one was selected for Consulting Engineer or Software Consulting Engineer positions. Iām unsure why Cisco chose such a small number of candidates this year, especially after conducting HR rounds for 160 candidates.
