This was a pool campus placement which included a total of 4 colleges with approximately 350+ students. The job profile was software, and a part of the job profile description mailed to us mentioned: "Solid understanding of distributed systems and networking principles, plus working knowledge of related disciplines, e.g., computer security, algorithms, database, and operating systems."

Round 1: Aptitude Test

This was a 1-hour test consisting of a total of 50 multiple-choice questions. 20 questions were on quantitative aptitude. As these were time-consuming, I would recommend starting with the next set of 30 technical questions. The technical questions were based on electronics (microprocessors – importance of all pins, interrupts, basics of peripheral ICs), operating systems (scheduling approaches, memory management, and processes), flip-flops, all sorts of additions and subtractions (2’s complement, half binary, etc.), C programming (find the error/output problems), and networking (TCP/IP, DNS, etc.).

Approximately 70 students were shortlisted for the first round of interviews.

Round 2: 1st Technical Interview

This was a one-on-one interview that generally lasted for 45 minutes. Firstly, they would go through your resume very closely. It is advisable not to add unnecessary details to your resume and to keep it as short as possible.

They first asked about my comfort zone, which could be either programming or testing based. I chose programming and networking. I was then asked the following questions:

• What type of errors do you face while programming? What happens when your program goes into an infinite loop? How do you solve such errors?
• What happens when you don't write the base case (return statement) of a recursive function? (Answer: It goes into an infinite loop, causing a stack overflow, and hence an exception will be called.)
• Write a program to reverse a linked list. Then I was asked to use recursion in this program.
• Problems/errors in C++ and problems faced in Java.
• What is modulation? Different types of modulation. What is phase modulation? Where is frequency modulation used?
• What is the circuit diagram of an oscillator?
• In which layer does a router work? Explain the functioning of a router.
• Puzzle: Consider a 3x3 array of dots. How can you join all the points without lifting your pen in 4 lines?
• In which sector would you like to see growth? How will you contribute towards it?

Round 3: 2nd Technical Interview (Managerial Interview)

This was again a one-on-one interview, much shorter than the first. Here, they asked only a few technical questions and presented a real-life situation.

I was asked the following functions:

• Write a program to swap two integer numbers. If you replace the two integer variables with char* pointers, how will the code change? Will it work?
• How do you free the memory of a node (i.e., delete a node) in a linked list?

The interviewer then went through the extracurricular activities on my resume. When he found cricket as my favorite pastime, he asked me to design a machine that will do the bowling. What parameters would I feed into the system (e.g., variation in pace, line, length, etc.) and how could I improve it on different pitches? (I mentioned neural networks.)

• Examples of application layer protocols that use TCP/IP. Explain DNS. What exactly happens when you put google.com in the address bar of your browser?

Round 4: HR Interview

You should be totally relaxed here and be high on confidence. Be very genuine and straightforward. Apart from typical HR questions, also prepare for questions like:

• What part of engineering has helped you the most? How?
• What other job offers do you have? Why do you want Cisco over that company?
• What do you know about Cisco?

Tips:

• Make one or two programming languages very strong. You should be able to write the pseudocode for any program you may be asked.
• Thoroughly study networking, including the working of all protocols and OSI layers. (Book recommendation: Data Communications and Networking by Forouzan)
• Study the basics of operating systems. I was asked questions on this only in the aptitude test. (Book recommendation: Operating Systems by William Stallings)
• Data Structures: Go through linked lists very well. Practice pseudocodes for operations that can be performed on linked lists. Study the basics of sorting, searching, and hashing. (I studied this majorly from the internet, finding difficult problems on linked lists quite simple to locate.)
• Electronics: Review some microprocessor concepts like interrupts and pipelining. Study the basics of important electronic components like Op-Amps, Oscillators, and Counters.
• Solve aptitude tests for programming languages and objective questions for Operating Systems.