How to get a job at Cisco.

Do you work at Cisco? How did you find the job? How did you get that first interview?

Any advice for someone trying to get in?

hai

Host said: Do you work at Cisco? How did you find the job? How did you get that first interview?

Any advice for someone trying to get in?

I strongly suggest that you have a current Cisco employee refer you for the position... without an employee referral,
you are better off betting on the Lottery.

Art in Santa Clara, California said: I strongly suggest that you have a current Cisco employee refer you for the position... without an employee referral,
you are better off betting on the Lottery.

I would tend to agree with this remark.
This is a good ole boy club.
I would suggest calling Manpower or Addecco tem agency and having them get you in also.
But beware any promises of getting in fulltime. You will do far more work than any of the full timers and nobody will care.. particularly your boss who probably got a kickback from Addecco.

Art in Santa Clara, California said: I strongly suggest that you have a current Cisco employee refer you for the position... without an employee referral,
you are better off betting on the Lottery.

Thanks for that!

so that's it.

Good luck getting past the recruiters. I was contacted about a position in Richardson and could never get the recruiter back on the phone. She called, left a message and I immediately returned her call and all I got was her voice mail. I tried over 10 times to get her on the phone with no success. She finally called me back 3 weeks later and notified me that they were no longer looking to fill the position. I think what happened is while she wasn't returning calls another recruiter filled the position. My advice is live by the phone, because if they call you then you better be able to answer immediately or you'll be well on your way to a cat and mouse game with HR.

unfortunately, what is a more likely scenario is that the recruiter didn't call you back because they were busy trying to fill that position with somebody they thought they could make more money on, etc..

recruiter will throw several candidates at a job, and also keep other candidates "handy" in case their first picks don't cut it, cost too much, etc..

don't trust recruiters to represent you; they represent the client company and their own interests.

- getting a good word from an inside employee is best;
- sometimes you can cultivate relationships thru user group
on site, etc.. it's hard, but no sales people in the way.

Hi all,

I have applied to few positions online a couple of weeks ago. To date, I'm no reply and the status of my candidacies are not indicated in my account... The positions match pretty well my skills since my last assignment fit almost exactly what the positions require. So I' m a little skeptical not to hear from the company. I know I'm not the only one who apply and they receive lots of candidacies every day. I'd like to follow up my candidacies but I have no contact inside. Does any one know how long it takes to get a reply?

i think that if you have good network / cisco experience it certainly helps to get into cisco direct. whilst there are lots of cisco related jobs about it is always about finding a good recruiter to get you the right openings.
useful resource maybe www.technojobs.co.uk/cisco
- lots of cisco & related cisco jobs

I have a friend who works for Cisco locally, and he admits that Cisco is only looking for top talents right now. Meaning, people with lots of experience integrating Cisco products into large companys' infrastructures. And if you fit that bill, Cisco already probably knows you because you've been a customer.

Cisco does show up at technical job fairs, so you might actually get to talk to a hiring manager at one of those. When I talked to them at a fair in Raleigh about a year ago, they were looking for engineers and programmers with direct Cisco experience -- for jobs in Southern California. However, none of their four recruiters were very positive. Two had arrogant attitudes.

Hi,

Thank you for replying to me and for the tips :-)
Well, I think it's gonna be hard for me, as I know no one at cisco and I'm not over there...And so I can't go to the jobs fair.

MRPS: thanks for the link, but I'm looking a position in USA. Sorry, I didn't indicate it in my previous message.

Just hope to have news from them soon following my applications on line...

I just got an offer from Cisco. The outsourced recruiter sourced my resume through Monster or Hot Jobs (my resume was out there on both). I recieved an email from a recruiter and they conducted a phone screen. I made sure to specify that I was not interested in temp positions. From there, they schedued my interviews (7 total) and I got a full time regular offer within 2 days of the last interview. I know no one in Cisco, so it is possible to get in right off the street.

Hi, What is your background ?. CS OR EE. I hear they hire a lot of programmers. I guess it must be a good match if they hire someone.

Hi, I also just got an offer. My resume was also submitted by an external recruiter, whom I had never spoken with, and I was contacted directly from Cisco. I didn't know anyone there. After just a few interviews, I was offered a job. I really think if you know your stuff and are experienced then you have a very good chance. However, if you are new to the business (or have only worked for small companies) and don't have a proven track record then why not go in as a temp? It will give you an opportunity to impress them and they can get to know and trust you. This is exactly how I got into the business when I was first starting out (with IBM) and I was the first to be considered once there was an opening. They actually look at it as "hiring internally". Don't get discouraged...there are tons of things outside of your control (hiring freezes, restructuring, etc.) but once you are inside the company, all you have to do is prove yourself. Good luck.

I agree with an earlier post that Cisco is going to be one of the safer job bets over the next few years. A former colleague started with them a few months ago, and said that the pressures are on par with what you'd expect with this economy.

I *highly* recommend the advice over at www.geocities.com/ciscosystemsjobtips if you are thinking about applying.

Also, there is no guarantee on how much time it takes from submitting an application to getting an interview. It could be days, but usually at least a few weeks.