I achieved a CCNA certification early in 2020. I immediately reached out for an interview at Cisco. Early in the pandemic they were opaque about their plans and it took multiple follow ups by myself to confirm that they were putting their hiring process on hold. I waited until early 2021 when they began opening the hiring process again. I reached out to the person I had been speaking to originally and they transferred me to a different HR rep. Set up an interview with ease. Technical interview was fairly straightforward and I recognize that my skills are rusty from a year removed from test prepping. I receive feedback that my skills are not quite at the level needed for this position, but great news there is a feeder position where my skills are definitely a fit and would eventually lead to a Network Support Engineer position. I begin that interview process, and apparently that is just 1 extremely vague prompt that I have to respond to in a customer support format. I respond immediately to the prompt in a short and concise way. It has not been explained to me that this interview will not be like the previous technical interview and I will not be responding back and forth with someone in a simulated problem, but instead just have to give that one email response. I get told a few days later I do not meet their standards. I asked for feedback and what I could do to meet those standards and I was never responded to again. They do not seem interested in breeding a learning environment with potential applicants or providing specific feedback on what they are actually want in a candidate. It is disappointing their own certification is inadequate preparation at their company's entry level positions.

The interview process consistes of 5 interviews. First was a short 10-15 min recruiter call basically explaining the role and what to expect, after that there will be 2 technical interview and 2 soft skills.