Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

I worked for any Indian manager for 4 years.. survived 4 layoffs.. only because the bangalore crew that was supposed to replace me kept quitting on him. Thankfully I left on my own as to avoid giving him the satisfaction of getting to give me the 'speech'.

Want to get promoted? Either get an insane amount of blackmail on SVP or higher and use it like a 2x4, or.. be a nice housewife to your manager. If either of those don't seem up your alley, Put on your hiking boots and talk a walk.

My coworker does the opposite and still is here. I wish my manager paid attention to performance not friendship.

1. Pick a supportive manager and a director who shouts your name from the rooftops.

2. Be visible - if you work remotely from the main action (RTP, SJ), then move, since you'll never be visible enough.

3. Volunteer (loudly) to do lots of things and drop most of them quietly some time later.

4. Never, ever say "no", enthusiastically agree but later on just drop them quietly if you cannot (or shouldn't) do them (see 3).

5. Try to push all your day-to-day work onto others - spend the time on management's current fashion

6. Impact the business (positively) - see 2.

I broke rule 1 - under a manager or two that didn't like to acknowledge any employees (we only ever got negative feedback) and 2 (remote worker) and 4/5 (did customer work rather than internal VP v VP in-fighting).

Even being a top performer, I had to wait 7 years on a constant salary for a promotion and then the increase was only 4% (no promotion budget, they dug it out of some retention fund).

It takes a long time for number 6 to get recognized.

@pwk

I was referring to normal teams, not disfunctional with broken management.

In such teams, reality is that you often have people performing above their grade (because of tenure, because they were lowballed at the beginning etc), so managers have broad pool to choose from when promotion budgets become available (which is rare though).

And one thing - again in normal situation - it's totally different story (and wait time) to get promotion from g6 to g8, vs g11 to g12. At higher grades you often need to wait for someone to leave (voluntarily - if someone is LRed, don't hope on replacing him).

Cronyism and nepotism is a very different thing. True - it's prevalent in some parts of the company. If you're stuck into such a group - again, your best chance of promotion is by going off the company and returning (to different team).

One word of caution - with Chuck, it seems now more and more clear, that there is gonna be less higher grade positions available.

Imperative is to hire at G4 and G6 keep for 3-5 years, and when people start reaching G10 - LR about 80% of them.

So overall... promotion prospects, even for top performers, are pretty bleak

Honestly would not worry about your fat promotions and salary increases for a while. Back in the 2000 era massacre we did not have any promotions or salary increases for 5 years, easily. How soon we forget.

Sometimes the best promotion you can have is to keep your current position. Let the Big Boys kill amongst themselves.

Switch to another company

imr: "getting promotion is hard"? "performing above their grade"? This sounds like HR is reading out loud from the script. This has not been put in practice as far as I see in CSG. How do you explain the reports of Ravi Chandra from grade 12 to VP in just four years? And why they are all from India? These just the proof that nepotism and favoritism prevail in Cisco as far as promotin is concerned.

Reallistically - getting promotion is hard. For one simple reason - there are usually multiple persons performing above their grade. So not only you have to perform above your grade, but also be lucky enough (or somehow influence people who makes this determination - hint, hint... VISIBILITY) to beat others.

Typically easier way to get promotion, is to leave company for 6-8 months, and return at higher grade.

Salary bump - that depends, but usually don't expect more than 5-7%. I've heard (but didn't verify) about cases of promotion without immediate raise (can happen if you're previous salary was high for the grade or with post-acquisition scenarios)

In Cisco Enginerring it is usually determined by if you are from the village that the SVP came from. Nepotism and favoritism are the only criteria for promotion in Cisco. In my BU In San Jose, all the managers are from India. You now have learned the promotion requitements.

Lmao!! Cisco is a joke about promotions.

Promotion Requirements, 2016

a) Must survive eight consecutive layoffs

b) Personal recommendations from a minimum of three managers

c) First and last name must have at least 3 "s", 2 "k" and one double vowell ("aa")