Cisco reviews

4.1

82% would recommend to a friend

(33,605 total reviews)
avatar

Chuck Robbins

78% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

Cisco has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 33,605 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Cisco employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

34K reviews
1.0
Dec 3, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Everyone in the industry has worked at Cisco at same stage, so you may as well get it on your resume, just dont bank on having a career at Cisco. The day you sign at Cisco, start interviewing with other companies.

Cons

I worked at Cisco for 13 years in various departments and in various job roles: The facts toaday are: 1) Zero pay increases since 2000 2) No more stock options 3) During a career, your Job description may change, but this does not mean a saray increase or promotion, rather increased responsibility for no reward. 4) All perks which made Cisco fun, (International Travel, beers in fridge, tea coffee, home internet, parking) are gone. 5) Expense claiming is a nightmare and is continually audited over the most trivial items, resulting in employees being out of pocket for months. 6) All of the talented Engineers / sales staff have left so you will be pretty much on your own, dont expect to rub shoulders in the corridors with networking guru's as they have long gone. 7) Training assuming it is approved, as there are constant expenses freezes, is conducted inhouse. Typically one person gets to go, then has to train his peers. However the guys who give the training are inexperienced and just read powerpoint slides. 8) Sales targets are strictly managed, so there are no accelerators / bonuses. 9) It is extreemely competative between staff and very political, as all try to claimb the corporate ladder in the hope of achieving a payrise...which is noexistant. 10) Moral is depressed as most staff spend their time planning an escape. 11) Innovation has been replaced by acquisition, so dont plan on being creative. If you want to have sport with the Cisco person interviewing you, ask them how long they have been in the role and what their career prospect are like within Cisco :)

1.0
Aug 15, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cisco Systems is the industry leader. You will have access to a vast amount of knowledge accumulated over a long period of time. Employees at Cisco get the benefit of a strong infrastructure, such as IT support, HR, benefits etc.

Cons

Cisco is a very political environment. Your success will depend mostly on how well you get along with your manager. Emphasis on bonus puts a lot of power in the hands of the mangers, which often ends up being abused. There is a lot of bureaucracy. Groups are always fighting turf wars. Therefore information does not flow well across group boundaries. The processes at Cisco are over engineered. Even doing the smallest amount of work has a great deal of overhead.

1.0
Apr 8, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best reason to work at Cisco is purely to get Cisco on your resume. The company still garners respect from the name recognition. It is also a great place to learn how big business works, with lots of management that does very little and if you are the little guy you will get to see what it is like to get dumped on all the time, which will let you develop techniques to deal with stress and overwork. Any job at Cisco will teach you office politics and give you insight into how playing politics can help you get ahead in a big company. These skill are invaluable if you are planning on working at large companies for most of your career.

Cons

You will not be compensated very well, you will not receive very good benefits, you will be forced to dealing with lots of change without any input into the decisions or how they will be implemented. You are forced to deal with LOTS of management, including VPs that don't even have anyone that report to them. Generally you will be at the mercy of the upper management and whatever benefits you have now will be slowly taken away, without you getting a say into how, why or when they will go away.

Viewing 100 - 102 of 33,605 Reviews

Glassdoor has 39,356 Cisco reviews submitted anonymously by Cisco employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cisco is right for you.