I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Jan 2013
Interview
case interviews and behavioral interviews with hiring manager and couple levels above as well as peers in different parts of the organization. met with about 10 people total. phone screen, then onsite interviews. took about 3-4 weeks in total from phone screen to offer. fairly pleasant experience, friendly, not hostile. hiring manager had coffee lunch with me after offer to see if i had additional questions, this helped seal the deal
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
tell me about challenging situation and how you handled it
atleast 5 rounds of interviews, many follow up conversations, need to chase the HR team often, interviews are courteous and professionally handled, whole process takes forever to complete, salary negotiation can take some time
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA)
Interview
A member of my business network contacted me about positions Cisco was looking to fill. I had 9 interviews (face to face, and phone) with future subordinates, peers, hiring manager, VP, EVP, and HR. The interviews were both behaviorally and technically based. The people were brilliant, extremely hardworking, collegial and ambitious. They had deep belief in and loyalty to the company. The culture was focussed, customer driven, and values based. Despite the extremely demanding hiring and interview process (and I got off light with only 9 interviews, typically it was a minimum of 12) it was the best company I ever worked for.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Define an Internet strategy (from a business, industry as well as technological perspective) for F100 customer appropriate for the CXO-level.