I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in May 2008
Interview
My opinion is limited obviously to the one experience I have had. My first contact was with the recruiter. The recruiter was very friendly and gave me a good overview of what the team did and what the job role was. He sent me the detailed job description which helped me prepare for the interview. It was followed by a 30 minute phone interview. Onsite interview soon followed - which was fully technical - "C" coding questions and OS and Networking questions and some design questions -- all of above average difficulty level.
The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Nov 2010
Interview
Went to my schools career fair. Had a short interview on the spot. I was offered an on-campus interview the next day. After a week, they asked me to fly up to San Jose for more interviews. On the day of the interviews, we were all (30 applying for the Cisco Choice Program) interviewing in the same room. Each of us had to interview 1 on 1 with a Cisco employee for 45min. After a 5 min break, we rotated to another interviewer. And again. So there were 3 interviews in a row. After their was a tour of the campus. A week later I received a congratulatory email and a week after I received an official offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to reverse a linked list? (in 2 different ways)