The first round was written. It consisted of 50 questions in 60 minutes. The 50 questions were divided into 2 sections: 20 aptitude and 30 technical. Both sections had separate cut-offs.

Out of the 30 technical questions, around 15 were based on electronics, including topics like MOSFET, Modulation, and Digital Electronics. The rest were from Data Structures, C output, Operating Systems, and Networking.

33 people were shortlisted after the written round. I was in 15th position.

Next, 3 one-to-one interviews were held. The first 2 interviews were elimination rounds.

Interview 1 (Technical Interview) (approx. 45 mins)

1. Tell me something about yourself.
2. He first asked me about my Areas of Interest (AOI). I said Data Structures, Computer Networks, and Object-Oriented Programming. He then confirmed if I included Computer Networks in my AOI because of Cisco. I said no.
3. What is FTP? Explain it in detail. I explained both the control and data connections in FTP, then he asked me which ports are used for both connections.
4. What is a Bridge? What are its advantages and disadvantages? How does it forward a packet? He then gave me a topology and asked me to explain how the bridge table would be affected if a node sent a packet to another node.
5. What is the difference between a Bridge and a Switch? Which one is better?
6. What is the difference between a Switch and a Router? When to use a Switch and when to use a Router?
7. Explain the Sliding Window Protocol.
8. Given two numbers, A and B, how many minimum bits do you need to flip to make them equal?
9. What is the difference between a structure and a union? When to use a structure and when to use a union? He then gave me a C question on the size of a structure and asked about its output.
10. Allocate an array of objects of the above structure using malloc and how would you delete these objects?
11. Do you have any questions for us?

Interview 2 (Manager Interview) (approx. 30 mins)

First, he read my whole resume very carefully.

1. Tell me something about yourself.
2. He then asked me about my AOI. He then said I was the only person from IT who knew Computer Networks, as all others from IT had been eliminated after the first round, and only 2 students from IT cleared the first round.
3. Then he asked about my hobbies. My hobbies were spot programming, cricket, and watching TV series and movies. We then had a long discussion about that, and he even asked me for the character names of my favorite TV serial. So, be prepared about your hobbies also.
4. Then he asked me about my Codechef rank since I mentioned it on my resume. He then asked me if it was a good rank, as he had no idea about Codechef. My Codechef world rank was 200 at that time.
5. Why is your CPI so low? There was about a 5-minute discussion over this. My CPI was 7.94. He then asked me 2 technical questions: 1 from Data Structures and another from Operating Systems. He had very deep knowledge of OS.
6. Take any of your favorite Data Structures and asked me to explain it. But when I started explaining, he interrupted me after just 30 seconds and said, "Leave it." By this, he wanted to check how fast I could make a decision, and his main focus was on my confidence rather than asking any question. So, guys, be confident.
7. This was the toughest and last technical question of my interview, with about a 10-12 minute discussion. He said, "If I kill any child process in Windows using the Windows Task Manager, how will it affect its parent process?" meaning, "What happens whenever you kill a child process in Windows?" Initially, this question was not clear to me, but he helped me go through it, so maintaining proper communication with the interviewer is very important. In the end, he asked if I had anything I wanted to know about Cisco. I asked him 2-3 questions just for formality.

Interview 3 (HR Interview) (approx. 25 mins)

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Asked me about my family background and why I didn't want to join my family business.
3. What is your biggest achievement till now?
4. Why do you want to join Cisco?
5. What do you know about Cisco? He asked me to speak for 5 minutes about Cisco.
6. What are your qualities?
7. Do you have any questions for me about Cisco?

Then he asked me to wait for the result. We all waited for the result, and after around 30 minutes, the result was out. They announced that a total of 8 people were hired: 5 from CSE, 1 from IT (me), and 2 from ECE. My name was also on the list at the 3rd position.

THAT'S IT.

You have 25 horses, and at a time, you can race a maximum of 5 horses. What is the minimum number of races required to find the top 5 horses?