Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Cisco Placement Tips and Interview Experinece


About Cisco: 

Cisco is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California that designs, manufactures and sells equipment’s. It was founded by Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner in 1984. Through its numerous acquired subsidiaries, such as Open DNS, WebEx, and Jasper, Cisco specializes into specific tech markets, such as Internet of Things (IoT), domain security, and energy management.

Cisco is the largest networking company in the world. Cisco Systems was founded in December 1984 by Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, two Stanford University computer scientists, who pioneered the concept of a local area network (LAN) being used to connect geographically disparate computers over a multiprotocol router system.


 The Cisco Test-Pattern and Selection Procedure is as follows :

Selection Process:

The company conducts recruitment process every year to select new candidates. The selection process of the company consists of following rounds.

 These rounds are as follows:

Number of Questions: 60
Aptitude: 30
Technical: 30
The total time allotted to the written exam is 60 minutes.

Academic Criteria:

Minimum 65 percent throughout the degree.
No backlogs should be there.
Gap in studies for upto 2 years is allowed with valid reasons.

Pattern of Written Exam:

 Aptitude section consists of questions based on probability , Age , Average , Heights and Distances , Pipes and Cisterns , Speed problems , coding - decoding and work and time.

Technical section consists of questions from C including pointers and based on Java.

Overall the level of the paper is moderate. Only those candidates who clear the written exam will qualify for the next round.

Profiles offered:

Internship only: SCO division (IT branch was also eligible)
Placement only: Services (ECE was preferred)
Internship and Placement: IT Analyst and IT Engineer (IT branch was preferred)


Quantitative Ability: 

BOOK: Quantitative aptitude by RS Aggarwal

TOPICS:  Problems on Trains, Simple Interest, Profit and Loss, Percentage, Average, Problems on H.C.F and L.C.M, Boats and Streams, Time and Distance, Time and Work, Compound Interest, Partnership, Problems on Ages, Permutation and Combination,  Problems on Numbers, Ratio and Proportion, Pipes and Cistern, Alligation or Mixture, Probability


URL: https://www.indiabix.com/aptitude/questions-and-answers/


Quantitative Ability section consists of questions based on topics such as probability, permutation, algebra, time & work, time, speed & distance, arithmetic, percentages, profit & loss, geometry etc. In general, the section difficulty level varies from easy to moderate. The total time allotted for this section is 35 minutes.

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I          INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE (ASISH VERMA)
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1st Round:
Online test

Duration: 1 hour
Number of questions asked: 50/60
No negative marking

Questions pertaining to basic concepts of networking, programming, operating systems, embedded systems (basic architecture), few questions on different networking techniques used by Cisco, etc. were asked.
All the topics were equally weighted in the exam.

Interview Process

Based in the candidate’s performance there were 1 or more technical interviews. If the panel likes a candidate, then the candidate will be sent straightaway for HR round.

Key: Be as strong as you can be with your basic concepts of all the important subjects and be confident of whatever you have written on your CV.

2nd Round:

Technical Interview

The interview lasted for somewhere around 20 minutes.

Questions asked:

·         Basics of your preferred language (C/C++/Java) and programming: what is virtual keyword, can we have multi-level linked lists or not, some questions on sorting algorithms, searching (both linear and binary) algorithm applications, Dijkstra’s algorithm implementation on a graph to find the smallest distance between two nodes (few iterations), writing code for singly linked list, hashing techniques, etc.
·         Basics of OS:  what are semaphores and give an example to explain how they are used to attain mutual exclusion, concept of deadlock and the working of deadlock detection algorithm with and example (both wait for graph and Banker’s algorithm), etc.
·         Internship and projects: what did you do in your internship, questions on the implementation of my projects.
·         General questions: why do you want to work for Cisco, career goals and aspirations.
If you are good enough then, the next rounds will happen soon.

3rd Round:

HR Interview  

Here, the interviewer will literally scan through every bit of your CV and will put in tough situations.
Key: Be confident and most importantly be yourself, do not ever fake it in front of the interviewer because he/she is not taking interview for the first time. They are very experienced and they can pick up very easily when a candidate is faking it.

Questions asked:

·         Tell us about yourself: Start with your name, native place etc and then go on to tell something very impressive about yourself in about 4 to 5 sentences. What is the one thing Manipal has given you.

·         How did you become so passionate about coding when you did not have a coding background before coming to Manipal. 
h    where do you see yourself in the next 5 years: This is a very important question which is generally asked in interviews in some or the other way. Act smart here. NEVER say that you want to pursue MS or an MBA after 1 year or 2 year. You will be rejected in most of the cases because of this answer. 

Open Electives: Why did you choose these electives ( Intercultural Communication (4th semester) and Project Management (6th semester).

Situation based question: “Suppose you are working in a team and your boss wants you to do some work in a certain way which he wants the work to be done in. You have a better approach to that work and you tell your approach to the boss. Then also, the boss is reluctant.” How will you tackle such a situation.

Key: In such situations, never say that you will still try to talk it out or go to higher authorities, etc. because by doing that you are complicating the situation more than it was previously Situation based question: 

Situation - “Suppose you are given two profiles to choose from, one being, Cisco developer, that is, a proper coder (my passion) and the other being, Cisco Infrastructure, a non-coder profile. Which one will you choose?”

Situation - “Suppose you again have two options, Cisco Infrastructure and a start-up company developer. Which one will you choose?”

How do you rate your interview on a scale of 10. 

Why do you want to work for Cisco 

Any questions for us.


4th round:

Short HR interview

Duration: 5 to 10 minutes
This interview was simply meant for a final check on the selected candidates.
Key: Show the interviewer that you are very ethical and genuine  at the same time. Do not fake it.

Questions asked:
·         Tell me about yourself (in detail): If the interviewer does not have your CV, then how would you tell him about yourself. Tell them about few experiences, in which, you have shown ethical behavior. The HR people love ethical behavior.

·         What do you want to do with your life in the long run.

         Did you sit for Microsoft and what happened there.

Thanks to Asish Verma for Sharing his experience.  

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INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE (Jayant Prakash)
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Cisco CMS Interview

This was a pool campus placement procedure where I was called to the Cisco Cessna Campus in Bangalore where applicants were from different colleges from South India.

Round 1: 1st interview was MCQ round. 50 questions of networking, aptitude, basic electronics and simple data structures. Testing platform was mettl.

75% of the applicants were eliminated from the round . I listened to the presentation afterwards where they told it was not a coding profile job.

Round 2: Round 2 was technical round where stress was mainly given on the information you provided in the resume. Simple OSI model question were asked. Also I explained them about my research papers.

Round 3: This round was also technical where they focussed on the SDN project and asked me about need of this project in today’s world. They also gave real time scenarios problems where they give me situations, to which I have to solve them using networking aspects. The Interviewer also tested my knowledge of the Transport layer of the OSI model in great depth.

Round 4: This round was managerial. At first some simple technical questions were asked on the my projects listed on my resume. Then the manager asked me some HR questions like strength, weakness, further plans. There was 2 profiles in CMS one was voice and other was data center. The manager was from voice so he asked which profile would i prefer. I said i preferred data center over voice to which he asked reason. I gave an honest reason based on my resume and areas of interest.

Round 5:  This round was another managerial round with the manager of data center team. He asked me show communication between network with the help of simple network diagram. After this he asked me about the SDN project and multicasting. It was a short interview.

Round 6: This was a HR interview where HR asked me about my hometown and other informal question. He asked me about any other offer i was having before this interview, to which i mentioned my full time offer at HP R&D. After this he told to leave as result will be sent to the placement office after 2-3 days.


Any other queries, you can contact me on Facebook or LinkedIn:

https://www.facebook.com/jayant.at.origin

https://in.linkedin.com/in/jayantprakash11

Thanks to Jayant Prakash for Sharing his experience.  

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Jay Jagannath Swami Nayana Patha Gami Bhaba Tume Bhaba Tume ...    






Mr. Tribikram Pradhan
Research Scholar, Dept. of CSE
Indian Institute of Technology, (BHU), Varanasi
E-Mail:  tribikram14@gmail.com

     

  



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