I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Cisco (Raleigh, NC) in Nov 2012
Interview
Only one interview with my hiring manager and a senior engineer. Interview was to see what technical information I had learned in the past week from a book that was given to me, as well as to see how I thought through problems and whether I could pick up concepts on the fly.
Standard panel, very simple leetcodes. reverse linked list kind of vibe s . I was literarly asked about how a linked list is structured and reversing it. there was almost no friction which I was shocked by one of the reason I did not accept
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.
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.