Cisco interview questions

955 questions from 114 candidate reports · 2013 to 2025

Online test → Technical → Managerial → HR·55% entry level

CS fundamentals

Showing 33 of 756 reported in this area

What is the difference between a switch and a router?

asked 7×easyPractice this →

Conceptual questions on Operating Systems

asked 5×mediumPractice this →

Compare TCP and UDP

asked 3×easyPractice this →

Explain the layers of the OSI model.

asked 3×easyPractice this →

What is the difference between a Binary Tree and a Trie data structure?

asked 3×easyPractice this →

Conceptual questions from Computer Networking

asked 3×Practice this →

Explain memory management in C

asked 2×mediumPractice this →

Conceptual questions from Computer Networks.

asked 2×mediumPractice this →

Explain the TCP/IP model

asked 2×easyPractice this →

What is deadlock in operating systems?

asked 2×easyPractice this →

What is thrashing in Operating Systems?

asked 2×easyPractice this →

What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

asked 2×easyPractice this →

What are the differences between TCP and UDP?

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Difference between IP address and MAC address.

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Explain the difference between process and thread

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Explain the phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Conceptual questions on Object Oriented Programming

asked 2×Practice this →

Conceptual questions on Computer Networks fundamentals.

asked 2×Practice this →

How does TCP/IP work?

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain ARP, RARP, and DHCP.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain the IP header fields.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain DHCP and DNS in detail

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain structure padding in C.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

How are IP addresses generated?

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain the OSI Model in detail.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain CPU scheduling algorithms

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain how a URL works in detail

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain the TCP/IP protocol suite

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Compare REST and SOAP web services.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain how a network switch works.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain how a router sends packets.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain fragmentation in IP packets.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Explain routing in computer networks

asked oncemediumPractice this →

DSA

Showing 15 of 345 reported in this area

Detect and remove a loop in a linked list.

asked 3×mediumPractice this →

Reverse a singly linked list.

asked 3×easyPractice this →

Find the middle node of a singly linked list.

asked 3×easyPractice this →

Find the longest palindromic substring in a given string

asked 2×mediumPractice this →

Find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters.

asked 2×mediumPractice this →

Given a string, find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters.

asked 2×mediumPractice this →

Detect a loop in a linked list

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Count the number of set bits in an integer

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Check whether a given string is a palindrome

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Implement a linked list with basic operations.

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Perform level order traversal of a binary tree.

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Search an element in a row-wise and column-wise sorted matrix

asked 2×easyPractice this →

Reverse words in a string.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Convert a queue into a stack.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Implement a Trie data structure.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Behavioural

Showing 3 of 74 reported in this area

How do you handle team conflicts?

asked oncemediumPractice this →

How would you resolve a conflict with a co-worker?

asked oncemediumPractice this →

How would you handle a challenging situation in the workplace?

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Aptitude

Showing 3 of 56 reported in this area

Solve aptitude problems based on pipes and cisterns

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Logical reasoning questions based on network topologies.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Quantitative aptitude questions on relative speed and distance.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Puzzles

Showing 3 of 33 reported in this area

Burning Candles Puzzle

asked oncemediumPractice this →

3 Bulbs and 3 Switches Puzzle

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Logical or IQ-based puzzle questions

asked oncemediumPractice this →

System design

Showing 3 of 30 reported in this area

Design a system for an application that is a competitor to Instagram

asked 2×hardPractice this →

Compare MapReduce and Apache Spark.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Build a visualization tool for a given graph.

asked oncemediumPractice this →

Showing 60 of 955 questions. Ranked by how often the same question came back across reports.

Practise a Cisco-style interview

A spoken interview built from these questions, scored when you finish; the report is yours.

Start practising

Common questions

What questions does Cisco ask?

Candidate interview reports most often cover CS fundamentals (58%) and DSA (27%).

How many rounds does Cisco interview have?

Candidate interview reports show an average of 4.1 rounds per experience, with a typical sequence of Online test → Technical → Managerial → HR. Individual interview paths can vary.

Is the Cisco interview hard?

Among questions with a reported difficulty, the mix is easy 43%, medium 53%, hard 3%.

Cisco interview questions

CS fundamentals

DSA

Behavioural

Aptitude

Puzzles

System design

Practise a Cisco-style interview

Common questions

Keep reading