Cisco Offers Traineeship to Engineering Graduates from Central and Eastern Europe

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, July 6, 2007 - Twenty-three young engineers from Central and Eastern Europe will start a one-year traineeship with Cisco® in August. They will be joining the Cisco Sales Associate Program with their peers from 45 countries in Europe, Russia and CIS, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. During the next 12 months, they will be trained in the latest networking and communications technologies as well as soft skills such as workplace communication and collaboration.

“Central and Eastern Europe have a great talent pool and long traditions in technical education. We are pleased to expand our cooperation with the region’s leading technical universities, many of which are also participating in the Cisco Networking Academy Program. We are building a partnership that spans the areas of educational program development, career development seminars and joint research projects,” said Kaan Terzioglu, Cisco’s vice president for Central and Eastern Europe. “I am especially proud of the high interest that graduates are showing in our Sales Associate Program and pleased to offer employment opportunities at our local offices throughout the CEE region.”

Cisco launched its Sales Associate Program in Central and Eastern Europe three years ago with the aim of offering traineeship opportunities to young graduates with a technical discipline such as engineering or information technology.

This year’s 23 candidates, selected from 1,400 applications, will be employed by Cisco as Associate Systems Engineers (ASEs). They come from Central and Eastern Europe’s leading technical universities and represent 11 countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Based in Amsterdam, the program includes courses in Cisco certifications, technical and sales skills, and general orientation into the Cisco culture. In addition to classroom and role-playing sessions, participants go on field trips to businesses, receive mentoring by seasoned Systems Engineers and are given on-the-job assignments in the labs and in the field back in their home countries.

Catalina Lehanceanu graduated from Cisco’s Sales Associate Program in 2006 and has since been working as systems engineer in Cisco Romania. “I became interested in networks during my computer science studies and completed the Cisco Networking Academy course at my university,” said Lehanceanu. “Joining the Sales Associate Program gave me the chance to continue with my studies, whilst gaining practical experience and sales skills. The curriculum is very intense: We learned in one year what I would have learned in five years elsewhere.” During the one-year program, Lehanceanu also acquired the Cisco CCIE® certificate, the highest level of industry certification in information technology networking. Supplementary to her job in Cisco Romania’s systems engineer team, she continues working with the Networking Academy program: “I am monitoring the quality of the Networking Academy classes and instructor courses in Romania. With close to 200 Networking Academy sites operating in our country, quality of education is a key focus for us.”

Beginning in August, 390 university graduates from around the world will start their year-long training program in Amsterdam, Tokyo and Raleigh, North Carolina. The Cisco Sales Associates Program has been instrumental in finding top sales and engineering talent and producing the next generation of Cisco Account Managers and Systems Engineers. To learn more about the Cisco Sales Associate Program, please visit: www.cisco.com/go/ciscograds.
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Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco equipment in Europe is supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.

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