FORESIGHT(2023): Summer Internship at Cisco | Dhruv Rathi|

1) Brief Introduction

I am Dhruv Rathi, a 3rd-year undergraduate student from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering at IIT Kharagpur. I am from Durgapur, West Bengal. I was the Tech Head at the Student Welfare Group and General Secretary Technology of LLR Hall for the academic session 2022–23. I have an interest in problem-solving and development. I am currently doing my summer internship at Cisco Systems in the software developer profile.

2) How did you get into Cisco? What was the selection procedure?

The selection process for Cisco Systems consisted of one online test and 3 rounds of interviews.

The online test consisted of 2 sections:

i) DSA questions

ii) MCQs related to computer science fundamentals, which included OOPS, OS, and computer networks mainly.

I was able to solve the DSA questions but found the MCQ part a bit difficult as I had not prepared for OS and computer networks at that time. Still, I was shortlisted for the interviews.

One night before the interviews, I searched for what type of questions Cisco asks in their interviews and found that they do focus on computer networks and OS. As I did not have much time, I went through some GFG blogs on TCP/IP and OSI models.

The interviews were scheduled through Cisco Webex.

The first interview was a technical one, and it lasted for around 45 minutes. In this interview I was asked some questions related to pointers in C. Then I was also asked one DSA question. The interviewer was very inclined to ask questions about OS and computer networks. So in cases like this, if you have not prepared the topic thoroughly, you should try to dodge the question by saying it was not in your coursework and try to direct the interview to the topics that you have prepared well. I did the same, but in this case, the interviewer was very strong-willed to know whatever I knew about CN. So, I told him whatever I could recollect from the blogs I read.

The 2nd round of interviews was technical + situation-based or managerial questions. This was also around 30 minutes.

There was a question in this interview where I was asked, “If there is a program for an elevator, then what are the test cases we should give to check the program, and what can be the edge cases?”

I was also asked questions related to the projects and internships on my CV.

The last interview was an HR round, which lasted for 7 minutes.

It started with my introduction, in which I also briefly included my internships and projects.

Then I was asked questions about what Cisco does and why I wanted to join it. In questions like this, you should try to impress the interviewer by saying how the company impacts the world.

After that, he asked about my location preferences, and the interview concluded.

3) How to prepare for them?

For the online test rounds:

Prepare DSA thoroughly (this is common for all software companies). I would also like to add that give as many coding competitions as possible. This would help you solve the questions fast in the coding rounds of companies.

Along with that, prepare topics like OOPS, as it is also asked in the coding tests of some companies. Specifically for Cisco, you can try to cover computer networks also through blogs of GFG and interviewbit.

For the technical interviews, you can practice saying your logic along with coding the problem. Some companies have their coding platforms where they will tell you to code and then check for test cases. For others, they can tell you to code on google docs or paper (in the case of offline interviews). One can practice for these with their friends. Also, try to give some mock interviews before the CDC interviews start.

One piece of advice from my side is that for whichever company you are shortlisted for interviews, search the net to see what questions or topics the company focuses on in interviews and prepare accordingly.

For HR rounds:

There are some fixed sets of questions that are asked by HR, and you should have an answer prepared for them beforehand. Many times, at the end of the interview, the interviewer might ask if you have any questions for him/her. So I would suggest preparing some questions for them as well. You can find the answers to these things online.

4) What difficulties did you face while preparing for this Company/Profile? How did you overcome this problem?

As I mentioned earlier, I had not prepared the OS and computer networks, so that was a disadvantage for me. The thing I liked about Cisco Systems was that they took all three rounds of interviews for everyone who was shortlisted and then selected on the basis of the aggregate of the three rounds. As my 2nd and 3rd rounds went well, I was finally selected.

In CDC, it is very important that no matter how good/bad your previous interview went, it should not reflect on the next interview. On some days, you can have multiple interviews with different companies, and this becomes very important during that time. It can happen that you felt the interview went very well, but you are still not selected. So, you should be mentally prepared for situations like this. In situations like this, it will be good to talk with your seniors, as they must have gone through similar situations and can help you with your problems.

5) According to you, who should ideally apply for this job?

Anyone who is aiming for the software profile should apply to Cisco Systems.

6) Any specific advice you want to give to the junta sitting for internships this year?

It is important that you focus on one profile and prepare for it thoroughly. There will be many distractions in your peer group, but you should be clear on what you should be doing.

You should never hesitate to talk to or take advice from any senior, but again, remember that even if you take advice from many people, the final decision on what should be done is yours. So prepare smartly, and in the end, everything will be sorted!

7) What are some of the major points you think would be valid to mention in your CV while targeting this profile? (any specific suggestions you would like to make?)

For software roles, the most important part of the CV is the projects and internship section. So expect to get questions related to your projects. Prepare them properly, and you should be able to defend whatever you write in your CV.