I applied through college or university. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Cisco (Los Angeles, CA) in Feb 2016
Interview
Went to their recruiting event on campus, got an on campus interview in a few days. It was a one on one interview with their engineer. Interviewer was very nice, asked about current projects and then moved to technical questions. Interview lasted just an hour.
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.