Company interview guide
Cisco interview process and practice questions
Cisco says its interview process varies by team and role, and that engineering roles typically include a behavioral interview and a technical assessment, such as a coding test. Candidates commonly report questions on networking fundamentals, operating systems and coding for software roles, and Cisco's careers site sets out how candidates may, and may not, use generative AI during hiring.
As candidates commonly report it; it varies by team, level and year. Last reviewed 18 October 2026.
The interview process
- 1Online application; recruiters check your résumé against the minimum qualifications
- 2Recruiter conversation about the role and your background
- 3Technical or pre-employment assessment for some positions, such as a coding test
- 4Technical interviews: networking, coding, systems and your projects, depending on the role
- 5Behavioral interview, often with the hiring manager
What interviewers listen for
- Networking fundamentals: the TCP/IP and OSI models, routing, switching and common protocols
- Collaboration, which Cisco's careers site calls how it gets things done
- Initiative, curiosity and measurable impact
- Your own thinking and experience, not scripted answers
- Coding and problem solving for software roles
- Security awareness in how you design and run systems
Behavioral questions
Tell me about a time you worked across teams to solve a customer's problem.
A good answer covers
- The customer's problem and which teams were involved
- How you coordinated and kept the customer informed
- The outcome, ideally with a measurable result
Tell me about something you taught yourself recently, such as a certification or a new tool, and why you chose it.
A good answer covers
- What you learned and what prompted it
- How you learned it: labs, projects, study plan
- Where you've already used it
Tell me about a time you took the initiative on something that wasn't assigned to you.
A good answer covers
- What you noticed that others hadn't acted on
- What you did and who you involved
- The result and what it led to
Tell me about a time a change you made caused a problem. How did you handle it?
A good answer covers
- The change and the problem it caused
- How you responded: rolled back, told people, fixed it
- What you now do before making changes
Role and technical questions
Explain, layer by layer, what happens when one computer sends data to another on a different network.
A good answer covers
- Application data wrapped into TCP or UDP, then IP packets, then frames
- ARP for the next hop, switching locally and routing between networks
- DNS lookups and how the receiving side unwraps each layer
What's the difference between TCP and UDP, and when would you choose each?
A good answer covers
- Connection, ordering, reliability and congestion control in TCP
- Low overhead and no delivery guarantees in UDP
- Examples: file transfer and web pages versus live voice, video or DNS
How does a router decide where to send a packet, and how do static routes differ from protocols like OSPF or BGP?
A good answer covers
- The routing table and longest-prefix match
- Static routes set by hand versus routes learned dynamically
- OSPF inside an organisation versus BGP between networks
Users in one office can reach the internet but not an internal application. How would you troubleshoot it?
A good answer covers
- Narrowing the scope: which users, since when, from where
- Working through layers: DNS, routing, firewall rules, VPN or the application itself
- Confirming the fix and recording what changed
What are VLANs, and why would a network team use them?
A good answer covers
- Logically separate networks on shared switches
- Uses: security, smaller broadcast domains, organising by team or function
- Trunk ports and routing between VLANs
How would you design a system that collects health data from thousands of network devices and alerts on problems?
A good answer covers
- Collecting metrics by streaming or polling, and storing them as time series
- Alert rules that catch real problems without flooding people
- Scaling the collectors and handling devices that go silent
How would you secure access to company systems for staff working from home?
A good answer covers
- Strong identity: multi-factor authentication and checking device health
- Least-privilege access per application rather than open network access
- Monitoring, logging, and a plan for lost or compromised devices
How would you improve video call quality for participants on poor connections?
A good answer covers
- Adapting video quality to available bandwidth and protecting audio first
- Jitter buffers, error correction and choosing nearby media servers
- Measuring quality from the user's side and testing on bad networks
Why Cisco? Fit and HR questions
Why Cisco, and which part of its business (networking, security, collaboration or observability) interests you most?
A good answer covers
- A specific area and what you know about it
- A link to your skills, certifications or projects
- What you want to learn there
What questions do you have for us about the team or the role?
A good answer covers
- Questions about the team's customers and current challenges
- How success is measured in the first months
- Learning and growth opportunities in the role
Tips
- Cisco's recruiters suggest listing professional certifications on your résumé; be ready to explain what you learned from each.
- Revise networking from the ground up: subnetting, the TCP handshake, DNS, DHCP, routing and switching.
- Cisco's hiring page allows AI for things like readability checks and prep tips, but not for scripted answers, assessment responses or real-time coding or design solutions.
- Prepare questions for your interviewers; Cisco's careers site encourages candidates to ask about the company, team and role.
- Read Cisco customer stories and blogs for the area you're applying to; its early-careers page suggests this.
Practise it out loud
A mock interview asks the way Cisco's interviewers are known to, follows up on your answers and gives you a report. The warm-up is free, needs no account and checks five of these questions as you answer.
About this guide
Written by Orbit from Cisco's own public pages and what candidates commonly report. Orbit isn't affiliated with Cisco. The questions are practice questions in the style of its interviews, not questions taken from them. Processes change, so check the job post and what your recruiter tells you.