Cisco Supply Chain Interview Experience

Cisco Supply Chain (Internship)

CEO: Chuck Robbins 

    Headquarters: San Jose, California, United States

    Revenue: 49.24 billion USD (2016)

    Founded: December 1984, San Francisco, California,

                   United States   

    Founders: Sandy Lerner, Leonard Bosack

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.

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

It is only an Internship and based on your performance during the internship, they give you a Full Time offer.

Eligibility: CGPA > 8.0

Profiles within Supply Chain: 6 

[Note: While interviewing, recruiters won’t tell you the exact profile, so better to read about these online once.]

  Global Planning & Fulfillment
 Technology & Quality
 Product Operations
 Supply Chain Transformation
 Global Marketing Operations
 Global Supplier Management

1^st Round: Online Test (MCQ)

 Platform on which test was conducted: Mettl

 Duration: 1 hr
 Questions: 60

Since there is no negative marking, attempt all questions. 

Topics:

·         5-6 questions related to B.E./B.E.T./Physics/Embedded Systems

·         Pointers –major focus was on this

·         Output related questions

·         Aptitude

·         Algorithms

·         OS scheduling algorithms – Round Robin, FCFS etc

·         Logical reasoning

·         Java based output questions on Inheritance

·         Basic networking related questions like Sub-netting

·         Few questions about network techniques used by Cisco – like port numbers used for a specific application.

·         One/Two DBMS related questions on Keys/Normalization.

2^nd Round: Group Discussion (only for Supply Chain)

Depending upon the online test results, they have certain cut off which determine whether the candidate will be interviewed for Cisco IT or Cisco Supply Chain Operations (SCO). 

If your name is in the GD list, you will be interviewed for SCO and not IT. At this stage, you don’t have a choice to change your division but later on in the interview round chances are there to change.

 
The shortlisted candidates will have a Group Discussion Round, where you are given only 1 minute to talk about your views for the topic. Topics would mostly include Current Affairs, Technology, and Digitization.  Be very confident in the GD, and back your points well. 

After the GD, half of the selected candidates proceed to the interview round.

Every round is an ELIMINATION round. 

3^rd Round: Technical Interview 

Now based upon your resume, recruiter will ask questions. My interview experience was good. It went on for almost 30 minutes.

The recruiter would ask questions like tell me about your interests or explain this particular project which is listed on your resume. Be thorough with whatever you have done in each of projects mentioned in your resume. You would have to explain it very briefly and in simple terms. 

My interviewer had asked me questions about my Android Application Development Project and about my paper publications. 

After this, he had given me two puzzles to solve, which I had to solve with the least algorithmic complexity time. If you don’t know the answer, don’t give up, always start with the brute force approach and then come down to the best time complexity.

After solving the puzzle, he had asked me few general questions on Algorithms and Time Complexity.

Note: In this round, if the recruiter thinks that your interests are more aligned towards Cisco IT, he can internally send to the IT process. He will ask you before doing this.

4^th Round: Second Technical Interview 

This was a coding round, which lasted for about 20 minutes. 

The interviewer asked me my preferred language for coding and asked me to write the main logic of the program on paper. 

Also questions were asked about my previous internships and the projects. 

They key is always interact while you write down the code. Let the other person know your thought process to the code.

5^th Round: Managerial Round 

Here I was put into situations. This is like a Pressure Test where they want to see your approach to the situation. This lasted for about 20 minutes. 

They will ask questions about your previous internships and put you into situations. One of the many that I was put into was:

You have been given some work to do and have also been instructed to do it in a specific way. But the way mentioned is not the most optimal approach. What would you do? 

      My answer was: “Sir, I would first show the work as per what was instructed to me and also I would ask for a few minutes to show the optimized work which I devised. “

 
      Depending on how you answer, follow up questions were asked. I was also asked questions about the recent developments in technology and how these would impact Cisco.
      

          Since I had another interview scheduled (Microsoft SMSG) at the same time when Cisco interviews were being conducted, I was asked if given a choice which company will you choose to work with and why? Do not fake it here. Be genuine while you answer such questions.

   
       My response to this was: “Since Microsoft SMSG had come for the first time in our campus and I could not attend the Pre-Placement Talk as I was interviewing for Cisco, I could only decide once I know more about the SMSG profile.”  

6^th Round: HR round

This mostly consisted of general questions like:

·         Why Cisco?

·         Why did you choose your branch? (in my case it was CCE, as it was a new branch.)

·         Tell me about your strength and weakness?

·         What have you done to overcome your weakness?

·         Can a strength be your weakness?

·         Do you wish to for higher studies?

·         Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
        Any questions for us? 

     

               Thanks to Swati Choudhary for sharing her experience.

  

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