What it does: Global business and technology solutions
Staff stats: 260,000 employees in around 40 countries; 8300 in the Asia-Pacific region
The good bits: Supportive corporate culture
The not so good bits: Big-organisation bureaucracy
Hiring grads with degrees in Engineering, Maths, IT & Computer Sciences; Finance, Accounting, Economics & Business Administration; Health & Medical Sciences; Sciences.
When Cognizant Technology Solutions was founded as an in-house technology unit of Dun and Bradstreet in 1994, it was known as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam. Several name changes followed, reflecting various pivots in direction. Largely in response to technological progress, Cognizant shifted its focus from Y2K solutions and web page development to corporate software systems maintenance than to building companies’ IT systems.
In 2003, Cognizant debuted on Fortune’s Fastest-Growing Companies List. It stayed on the list for the next decade. Today, the company provides a range of services via Cognizant Digital Business, Cognizant Digital Operations, Cognizant Digital Systems and Technology and Cognizant Business Consulting. The US-headquartered multinational has offices and delivery centres across the globe. It services clients operating in a range of industries. In Australia, its key offerings include application services, business process services, business consulting, quality assurance and IT infrastructure services.
The Fortune 500 company’s annual revenue for 2017 is forecast to reach close to US$15 billion.
In 2013, Cognizant established a comprehensive diversity and inclusion program, Completely Cognizant, to weave diversity and inclusivity into the fabric of its business. Women Empowered, one of the company’s diversity programs, seeks to recruit, develop and promote appropriately qualified women. The company is also dedicated to providing affinity groups to staff who are, for example, part of the Asian or LGBT communities.
Cognizant’s aims to achieve sustainable growth through environmentally friendly practice and careful use of natural resources. ‘Go Green’, company-wide initiative employees engage with to improve environmental outcomes, had driven the development of a carbon footprint calculator, car-pooling app and improved e-waste collection. Around 4000 staff have been involved with clean-ups, recycling campaigns and environmental-awareness campaigns.
Cognizant has also invested in STEM education relevant to the needs of each region in its global network. Outreach, Cognizant’s employee-led corporate social responsibility arm, focuses on achieving educational equity by addressing gender, economic and geographic issues. It has been most active in India but is expanding its activity in Australia and elsewhere throughout the world.
In 2016, Cognizant was listed in Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies.
The first pool of call for potential Cognizant employees is the careers section of the company’s website. Here you can create a resume, search for appropriate roles and register for job alerts.
The company’s recruitment team evaluates resumes then contacts applicants who make the shortlist. Candidates who have applied for technical roles participate in technical interviews with technical experts. All candidates are assessed for cultural fit and you should be prepared for online and written testing.
Increasingly, grads in the Asia-Pacific region join Cognizant through its Campus Recruiting Program. After an initial on-campus interview, grads go through a similar recruitment process to that described above.
If you receive an offer, you can expect to start your career at Cognizant with a two-month training program. This involves soft skills, business and technical training at the company’s key delivery centres in India. You’ll also take part in specialised training programs relevant to your role and business unit. This training is delivered through the Cognizant Academy, a virtual corporate university that fosters organisation-wide professional development.
You can expect a package in line with the industry standard. Like most big companies, Cognizant offers staff subsidised insurance but, for an IT company, it doesn’t provide many perks.
Cognizant Career Architecture, the company’s sophisticated talent-development program, will be used to help you choose a career track that best suits your capabilities and interests. You’ll be expected to design a learning plan and have plenty of access to training courses through Cognizant Academy, as well as external professional development programs run by prestigious educational institutions such as Harvard University. As you start to move up the org chart, you’ll be invited to take part in leadership development programs.
As a global behemoth, Cognizant is a multicultural melting pot. It’s also fast-growing and dynamic tech business with buzzy work culture. If you’re the adaptable, innovative and cosmopolitan type, you should enjoy working at Cognizant.
"A Fortune 500 company, Cognizant is a leading provider of global business and technology services that are ranked on Fortune’s lists of the “World’s Most Admired” and “Fastest Growing Companies.”
We combine a passion for client satisfaction and innovation with a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work.
At a time when organisations need to make a conscious leap from doing digital to “Being Digital”, Cognizant is a pioneer in meeting the rapidly-changing demands of customers. We continuously seek the best and the brightest when we recruit young graduates and we’re consistently an employer of choice around the world.
Our Graduate Program is committed to your learning through Cognizant Academy and other training and education programs. You will be mentored by top Cognizant experts and gain exposure to a variety of technological applications. Graduates will begin with a 2-month training program— comprising of a mixture of soft skills training, Business Unit Integration and technical training in our key delivery centres in India. We want you to grow with us.
We want you to innovate and carve a niche for yourself as our Associates, and for our clients and their businesses.
The outlines of our business have been drawn, and it requires strength, passion and character from achievers like you!"