Cognizant launches Talent Accelerator programme with 489 B-school graduates

Cognizant has launched its Talent Accelerator programme with 489 newly hired graduates from 58 business schools across 37 cities in India. The move comes as the company expands its focus on interdisciplinary talent for an AI-driven workplace.

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.

The two-week immersive onboarding programme is being conducted simultaneously across Cognizant’s facilities in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. It is designed to familiarise new hires with the company and its values while providing functional, sales and marketing training. Participants will also interact directly with Cognizant’s business and leadership teams.

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 programme fosters a culture of collaboration and aims to equip new associates to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and real-world business outcomes.”

The cohort reflects Cognizant’s efforts to broaden hiring beyond traditional STEM backgrounds. More than 37 per cent of the new hires come from non-STEM disciplines, including sociology and psychology, as well as vocational fields such as office management and secretarial practice and design-related disciplines such as industrial design.

Women account for more than 42 per cent of the cohort.

The programme comes as Cognizant scales its efforts to build a workforce capable of translating AI capabilities into business outcomes. The company has recently committed to expanding its Frontier-certified workforce to 5,000 Frontier Certified Engineers and 10,000 Frontier Business Operators.

The company describes the workforce as the human and operational infrastructure required by enterprises to translate AI capabilities into measurable business results.