Cognizant Launches Talent Accelerator Programme for 489 B-School Hires

Cognizant has launched a two-week talent accelerator programme for 489 newly hired graduates from 58 business schools across India, conducting the initiative simultaneously across its facilities in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Pune.

The cohort comprises recruits drawn from B-schools across 37 cities nationwide. The immersive onboarding programme has been structured to introduce new hires to the organisation and its core values, while delivering a blend of functional, sales, and marketing training alongside direct interactions with Cognizant's business and leadership teams.

The recruitment drive reflects a broader move by Cognizant to hire talent from non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) backgrounds in order to build interdisciplinary skill sets required for the artificial intelligence era.

More than 37 per cent of the incoming cohort comes from non-STEM disciplines. These include liberal arts fields such as sociology and psychology, vocational areas including office management and secretarial practice, and design-oriented streams like industrial design.

In addition to educational diversity, women account for over 42 per cent of the 489 graduates participating in the accelerator programme.