An always-on strategy to find extraordinary talent for CX Centers Americas

Cisco is widely recognized for helping companies transform. To give our customers a solid foundation to achieve their digital transformations, we have improved our workplace, services, supply chain and security. Ours is a journey to drive workforce innovation, as part of our own digital transformation.

Recruiting extraordinary talent is essential to fuel our constant evolution. Within Cisco’s CX Centers Americas, our highly specialized Technical Consulting Engineers (TCEs) are our competitive advantage. The TCEs in CX Centers solve our customer’s biggest challenges. We do this through our technical expertise, a customer experience to count on, and innovation that puts intelligence at our customer’s fingertips. And we are constantly looking for team members to join our team.

CX Centers Americas Approach to Hiring the Best

We partner with Cisco’s Emerging Talent Recruiting and CX Academy (CXA) to bring the best talent to CX Centers. Our vision is to deliver an extraordinary customer experience. Our TCEs make that happen. We provide them with the tools and knowledge to excel in their jobs. Our training builds a solid foundation that allows them to have both technical skills and be customer obsessed.

Since our TCEs come from all walks of life, we want to make the best of their talent journey. We have designed two streams of engagement based on the population of the person interested in joining us: emerging talent and professional hires.

Emerging Talent

TCE (Technical Consulting Engineer) Graduate Program: After being recruited from universities and undergoing an interview process, new employees go through a six-month onboarding training supported by CX Academy. The TCE Graduate program runs two times a year, following typical university graduation dates. During their first six months at Cisco, we train the new hires from the macro to the micro level. New TCEs rotate through four different teams within a technology group before being placed on one of the teams to begin their team-specific training. Candidates are also exposed to other experts and leaders through activities including Executive Fireside Chats, Living Cisco’s Principles, Coaching Sessions, and more. We accept around 80 new hires annually with this program.

“CXA provided a challenging and collaborative learning environment that allowed me to expand my soft skills and develop acquired technical skills in the field of networking. I learned how to be a successful TAC engineer thanks to the work that my mentors, my trainers and my cohort put in to develop training materials that allowed me to capture the relevant content.”

—Mariana, TAC (Technical Assistance Center) engineer, TAC Collaboration Team in Richardson, TX.

Co-Op / Intern Program: After undergoing interviews, students are welcomed to the Co-Op for six months on a full-time basis, 40 hours/week. The Co-Op program runs twice a year in US with ~20 co-ops per cohort. 70% convert to the full-time Technical Consulting Engineer role post-graduation. Students start by learning the fundamentals of the TCE role, spending the first three months of the program supporting simple cases, and slowly increasing in number of cases taken and difficulty. All of it under the supervision of a mentor. At the mid-point of the program, the Co-Ops join the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) teams to learn one of the teams’ technologies and begin to support cases in the queue. Pre-Covid, Co-Ops spent the beginning of their experience in CX Labs, learning the basics of the hardware used to recreate cases.

The internship is a three-month summer experience, currently for returning Co-Ops only, in which they will return to the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team they had previously supported.

At the end of the experience and depending on performance, the Co-Op will receive an offer to return as a future Co-Op, Intern, or receive a full-time TCE offer.

“Being a TCE Co-op was the best professional experience I have ever had and prepared me for taking on the role of a full-time engineer. Everyone I talked to and learned from offered help and wanted to see me succeed in my role.”

—Anthony, TCE (Technical Consulting Engineer) Co-op

Pre-Apprenticeship and Apprenticeship: The Apprenticeship program is the same as the Co-Op program; the difference is the population we source from. These programs are especially designed for those coming from any walk of life. Candidates could be in the process of achieving their Associates degree, switching careers, or exiting the military. We have partnered with Wake Tech Community College in North Carolina and Collin College in Texas to source candidates who are currently enrolled in a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification course. If these institutions have students who are interested in a TCE Apprenticeship, they join the pre-Apprenticeship to receive professional development sessions hosted by Cisco. After attending at least 80% of the professional development sessions and achieving the CCNA certification, candidates are eligible to apply and interview for the TCE Apprenticeship. The end goal for pre-apprentices is to become TCE apprentices and ultimately TCEs.

The apprenticeship pilot started in the Fall of 2021 and is planning to run twice a year. We started with five apprentices, all officially registered as apprentices with the state of North Carolina. There are also currently 30 pre-apprentices, with plans to enter apprenticeships, which started in March.

PEX (Practical Experience Program): PEX is a rotational program that provides individual contributors with their first opportunity to manage people. The Program is designed to give aspiring leaders practical, hands-on people management experience. Managers are responsible for managing a cohort of 5-10 new hires for the first 6 months of the 12- month CX Academy program. Responsibilities include onboarding of new hires, mentoring/coaching throughout the program, performance management of new hires, collaborate effectively with local and global team members, build relationships with stakeholders, and own the planning/delivery of projects.

Professional Hire

This track is for experienced professionals. It was created to standardize the experience of the new employee and includes a diverse range of activities for the new employee, the hiring manager, and the mentor to make the best of all recruiting steps for the first 90 days (about 3 months).

Learn more about Customer Experience Centers (CXC) and

How Cisco Networking Academy is empowering people worldwide with career possibilities

Find your next career at the World’s Best Place to Work for the last two years in a row, https://jobs.cisco.com/

For further information about any of these programs in the United States, contact cxc-amer-talent@cisco.com

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