I know many young and very talented people who came here and soon after were disappointed. They brought new energy, new ideas, enthusiasm, but all that is no longer valued here at Cisco. It’s fascinating how many people who go from here, where they were almost invisible, and do great things in other companies. Cisco may once have given talent a chance, but nowadays there is a different atmosphere here.
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It seems like a lot of young, upcoming "top-dogs" will struggle to move up the ladder at Cisco. Eventually, they leave for another tech company and get made into a Director/VP, or front-line manager at the very least, within 2-3 years, if not sooner.
I have to agree with OP.
College grads need (a lot of) support. They must be constantly given little micro-projects and whenever they complete even the most minor task, they need reward and recognition. You must hand out heaps of gold stars and social media likes.
Promotion every 6-9 months is the minimum - so you really need heaps of micro-grades to promote them into. You need a bagful of impressive sounding titles to bestow upon them and lots of opportunities for Instagram selfies.
But Cisco doesn’t do this, we just give them access to a lab and say “go in there, learn how to cable up and ‘rack and stack’ and configure stuff and then come out in 2 years and see if you’ve become useful”.
Not surprisingly, just about all of them are gone by the 12 month mark.
Bust your a-s, come up with new innovative ideas that save the company orders of magnitude more than your salary. Then watch your compensation atrophy to inflation while management pays you in kind words. Enough.
Truth is that you have to hustle. Get in, get a notch on your belt and show it to the next greedy pr--k. Then when he’s starting to take you for granted, repeat the cycle.
If you’re a normal schmuck, born of normal means, this is the only way to get ahead. It’s not fair but it is reality.
"BS. My team is working with fresh grads and they're having a blast."
There's no career path at Cisco for fresh grads. They are happy to have a job, and a free work computer. That quickly wears off.
The good ones start to leave after 9 months.
BS. My team is working with fresh grads and they're having a blast. Will it last 5 years? Probably not. But would it be any different somewhere else? Probably not. Just enjoy fun times while they last and if routine sets in, try something else.
Who cares about talent, energy, ideas, careers, flourishing and all of that jazz? Nobody besides a bunch of marks.
The first reply is on the nose: Cisco exists to provide people with a steady paycheck and perpetual vacation. Not to enable virtue signaling snowflakes spouting off a bunch of lame buzzwords.
When I worked at Cisco my boss was in a different building due to the fifty re-orgs that happened during my tenure. He didn't care. I didn't care. My colleagues didn't care. During the summer I would randomly take days off and head down to the Boardwalk. Going on the weekend is a nightmare with the crowds and traffic but on a random Thursday afternoon it is actually quite pleasant...well as pleasant as Santa Cruz is capable of being anyways.
Of course I never submitted PTO or even told anybody I wasn't coming in (my PTO was always maxed out). I just disappeared here and there and nobody ever said anything.
If you're smart like me and want to game the system then Cisco is the perfect place to work. If you care about MUH KREE-AY-TIVITUH then go wagec-ck someplace else.
Team Space ki---d the company, four of us left and joined a competitor who allows us to work as a team allowing our creativity to flourish and not micromanaging each person with foolish weekly reports.
Cisco is the place where you learn manipulation skills.
Cisco is the place where you collect a paycheck while you put in an average/below-average effort.
Everyone knows that it's not a place to grow your career.