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Cisco interview questions

22 questions researched across 1 Cisco seat in Engineering. Below are 12 of them.

Seats we researched

  • Engineering InternEngineering · intern · 20 min

12 Cisco interview questions

  1. What is a subnet and why do we bother?

  2. Tell me about a time you worked with someone remote in another time zone.

  3. How would you explain latency versus bandwidth to a customer?

  4. Explain the difference between a router and a switch. When would you use each?

  5. How would you troubleshoot a connectivity problem between two hosts in different subnets?

  6. How does ARP work, and what problems can arise?

  7. Explain the OSI model and where common protocols sit.

  8. How do firewalls and packet filtering work?

  9. How would you find the shortest path in a graph? Talk me through your approach and its complexity.

  10. Tell me about a challenging technical problem you solved.

  11. How do you handle ambiguous requirements?

  12. Tell me about a project that didn't go as planned.

What a strong answer does

The questions above fall into 2 kinds. What a strong answer does differs by kind, not by question.

Technical7 of 12 above
State the intuition first; walk through the mechanics; make assumptions explicit; test a risk or edge case; connect the answer to the role.
Behavioral5 of 12 above
Lead with the claim and context; isolate your personal action and decision; explain the trade-off; quantify the result; finish with what you learned and changed.

10 more Cisco questions

The rest of the bank — 22 in total — is asked by the interviewer during practice, so you meet them the way you would on the day rather than reading them first.

Practise Cisco questions

How these questions were researched

Every question carries a provenance grade. Some were reported by candidates who sat the round, some come from the firm’s own published guidance or a source that trains for it, and the rest are written to match how this firm asks. Each seat is studied on its own — the round it actually runs, the order it runs it in, and what it is listening for. A Cisco round is not a generic behavioural screen, and practising one as the other is how people walk in unprepared.

Falas is not affiliated with or endorsed by any employer named. Simulations are independent practice based on publicly described recruiting formats.