Cisco

Role: Summer Intern 2025

College: Not Specified (On-Campus Recruitment Drive)

Interview Date: Online Assessment: September 3; Interview Day: September 19; Final Verdict: September 27 (all in 2024 for 2025 internship)

Interview Type: On-Campus, Internship

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 1 Online Assessment + 3 Interview Rounds

Topics Asked: Core CS fundamentals (OOPs, Computer Networks, OS), Data Structures (Tries, BFS, Graphs), Projects (Arduino-based solar tracking, Blog Website, Habit and Mood Tracker), Scalability, Deployment, MongoDB, Teamwork, Challenges, HR questions.

Experience:

The candidate went through an on-campus recruitment drive for a Summer Intern role at Cisco and was selected.

Round 1: Online Assessment (September 3): Conducted on HackerRank. It had 42 questions: 40 MCQs on core CS fundamentals (OOPs, CN, OS) and 2 coding questions. One coding problem was based on Tries and BFS (solved completely), and the other was based on Graphs (partially solved). The candidate advised quickly going through MCQs to save time for coding problems, which carry more weight.

Interview Process (September 19): Cisco used an unbiased evaluation, requiring resumes in a specific format without college name, CGPA, or branch. All interviews were conducted on Cisco Webex simultaneously for over 200 students.

Round 2: Technical Interview (45-50 mins): After a brief introduction (no personal details), the interviewer deep-dived into the resume, discussing projects (Arduino-based solar tracking, Blog Website, Habit and Mood Tracker). Purely theoretical Computer Networks questions were asked. The results were announced after a 10-15 minute wait.

Round 3: Technical Interview (Managerial/Broader Assessment) (Not explicitly numbered, but follows Technical 1): This round started about 30 minutes later with a senior employee (12 years at Cisco). The focus shifted from pure coding to a broader technical and personality assessment. It began with a discussion of hobbies (e.g., reading a book and its impact). Projects were discussed again, focusing on scalability and deployment (e.g., backend and MongoDB for Blog Website). Behavioral questions included teamwork challenges and location preference.

Round 4: HR Round (Not explicitly detailed as a separate round in the snippet, but a "Final Verdict" was given): The final verdict was received on September 27th via the college's Training and Placement cell. Out of 7 shortlisted students, 3 made it to the HR round, and this candidate was selected.

Tips: Master core subjects like Computer Networks and Operating Systems, and have in-depth knowledge of resume projects.