Cognizant Brings Cognitive Diversity to Its B-School Talent Pool

Cognizant has launched its Talent Accelerator programme for 489 newly hired graduates from 58 business schools across 37 cities in India.

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The two-week programme combines onboarding, functional training, sales and marketing sessions, and interaction with the company’s business and leadership teams.

Two-Week Onboarding Programme

The programme is being conducted simultaneously at Cognizant facilities in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.

According to the company, the programme is designed to help new hires understand Cognizant and its values while providing training relevant to their roles.

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The cohort includes graduates from institutions such as IIM Bangalore, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Lucknow, ISB Hyderabad, SPJIMR Mumbai, FMS University of Delhi and XLRI – Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, among others.

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The company has not disclosed the individual roles or functions assigned to all 489 graduates. The hiring also includes graduates from non-STEM academic backgrounds.

Cognizant said more than 37% of the cohort comes from areas including sociology, psychology, office management, secretarial practice and industrial design. More than 42% of the new hires are women.

The programme is relevant because it combines campus hiring with a structured onboarding period rather than treating joining formalities as the complete induction process.

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The training also brings business, sales and marketing exposure into the initial learning period for management graduates.

Cognizant on Interdisciplinary Talent

Rajesh Varrier, President – Global Operations and Chairman & Managing Director, Cognizant India, said:

As an AI Builder, Cognizant believes cognitive diversity is essential to creating value for both clients and associates. By bringing together interdisciplinary talent from across the country from day one, the Talent Accelerator program fosters a culture of collaboration and aims to equip new associates to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and real-world business outcomes.

The programme comes as Cognizant continues to build talent for roles connected with technology and AI-enabled business work.

The company said it is also working towards a Frontier-certified workforce comprising 5,000 Frontier Certified Engineers and 10,000 Frontier Business Operators.

The Talent Accelerator programme indicates that Cognizant is bringing management graduates from different academic backgrounds into its workforce and giving them structured exposure to business functions, company values and technology-related requirements at the start of their employment.