This article covers my interview experience for the Summer Internship 2025 drive by Cisco. I'll go through the overall process with the dates, and hopefully this helps y'all! :)
VERDICT: SELECTED
Applied - 25th August, 2024
I originally came across the opening on LinkedIn and applied on the Cisco Careers portal through a referral on the official Careers page.
Online Assesment - 2nd September, 2024
The assesment consisted of 2 sections.
MCQ section:
42 MCQs based on Computer Networks, OOPs, Operating Systems, DBMS, Aptitude and Computer Fundamentals. I personally found this section easy, and I believe this section was what led to my shortlisting as my DSA section hadn't gone too well.
DSA section:
2 Questions, one Dynamic Programming based and the other based on Graphs.
Link to the questions with solutions : https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/5732073/CISCO-FY25-or-Online-Assessment-or-Summer-Internshipor-2nd-sep-2024 (Unable to attach clickable link but pasting this should work)
The Interview Call - 11th October, 2024
Around 12 pm, I recieved a call from a recruiter at Cisco informing me of my shortlisting for the interview, and confirmed my availability for the interview.
I was also asked to share my resume in a specific inclusive format that Cisco requires resumes to be in.
First Interview Round (Technical) - 14th October, 2024
I had my interview scheduled at 12:00 pm, and the expected duration was around 30 minutes. My interview stretched up to about 45 minutes, and would've taken longer but I had an exam at 1:00 pm so we had to cut it short. This interview was set up with a Software Engineer.
I was interviewed majorly on my previous internship experience - what my individual contribution to it was, and each of my projects in details. (Make sure to know your projects in depth and able to answer any question based on it). We then delved into a basic DSA Question ( Something similar to this - Frequency of Characters in Alphabetical Order)
I didn't ask the right clarifying questions before diving into the code, so make sure you know what the expected output is before you start to come up with an approach. This led to me getting the wrong output, and the interview shifted in the direction of assessing how i would debug issues in case they arose.
There probably would have been more DSA questions, but the interview ended at this due to the time constraint.
Second Interview Round (Technical) - 22nd October, 2024
I received a mail about 4 days after the first interview that my 2nd interview was scheduled on 22nd. This was what I believe is called the Hiring Manager round, and was set up with an Engineering Leader at Cisco. This interview too, stretched upto about 45 minutes to an hour.
The interview began with my introduction, and we dove straight into questions about my favourite subject, to which I replied Networks. I was quizzed on various protocols, and where they found applications.
Next, I was asked about what data structure I would use to store an Employee Database, and the time complexity for each action on the Database.
After this, the interview steered in the direction of System Design. I had to design and develop an app that was meant to be a competitor to Instagram. I was given about 5 minutes to think it through and come up with a basic architecture. After I explained my architecture, I was asked a follow-up question about delay handling in case of distributed systems, and I wasn't able to answer it correctly as I had not dealt with such systems in the past.
The interview ended with me asking the Manager questions about the team he worked at, and what interns do in the team.
Third Interview Round(The ETR Connect Round) - 28th October, 2024
On 28th, I received a call from the recruiter asking me to schedule a 10-15 minute meeting, which I was informed was a casual connect session with the ETR ( Emerging Talent Recruitment as Cisco calls it).
This was a casual call discussing my availability for the internship and stipend and duration details. I was also asked how excited I'd be if I were to be shortlisted for the internship.
The selection mail! - 28th October, 2024
About 2 hours after the ETR round ended, I recieved a mail informing me that I had been shortlisted for the offer at Cisco for the Summer Internship 2025.
I hope this article helps future applicants understand the process better, as these helped me immensely during my preparation for the interviews! :)
#Experiences-QnA #Experiences #interviewexperiences