Ways to Join Cognizant

How to Join Cognizant?

Well, now, coming to the most important part, what are the ways to join Cognizant? We will discuss various ways to join Cognizant, which includes:

• Campus drives, such as on-campus and off-campus drives
• Job platforms
• By taking employee referrals

Campus Drives

Cognizant conducts various on-campus and off-campus recruitment drives throughout the year. We will be talking about both in detail in the next section. Although the eligibility criteria to apply for the drive are the same for both on-campus and off-campus recruitments.

Eligibility Criteria

Following are the eligibility criteria for applying to Cognizant.

Grade 10	Need at least 60%
Grade 12	Need at least 60%
Graduation	Need at least 60% or 6 CGPA
Backlogs	No active backlogs

On-Campus Drives

If Cognizant is part of your campus recruiter, it will be a smooth and fast journey for you. Usually, Cognizant completes its whole selection process within 3-4 days. From screening tests to interviews, all the processes will be elimination round. Following are the details about all the rounds involved in the selection process.

Screening Round

The first round of the selection process will be an ‘online aptitude test’. It will be a screening test which will be of elimination type. It will consist of Quant, Logical and Verbal Questions. The number of questions will be 50, and you will be provided 100 min to solve them.

Coding Round

The coding round is an elimination round too. It consists of 7 MCQ Coding and Debugging Questions. Sometimes you can be asked simple coding questions on arrays, strings and problem-solving. It is generally of 30-45 minutes.

Technical Interview

The technical interview round assesses the technical skills of the candidate. The general questions are from your CV, so make sure you prepare them well. You’ll be asked questions from your majors or final-year projects. So you should be prepared to answer it too. This round can last up to 30-45 mins as well.

HR Round

Finally, the last round of the selection process. Here, your core values will be assessed along with your vision and how you will cope with various transitions. This round will not be more than 20-30 min.

Pool Campus Drives

Cognizant also conducts pool campus drives. Pool campus is a type of on-campus placement. It means that if the university has colleges affiliated with it, students from all colleges can attend the university's or the designated campus's placement drives.

Off-Campus Drives

Cognizant conduct various off-campus drives throughout the year. You can find the job updates on the Cognizant Career portal. Cognizant also posts hiring updates on its LinkedIn page. You can apply for the off-campus drives from there. 

The off-campus selection process of Cognizant is the same as the on-campus selection process. It usually takes three rounds, an online aptitude test, a technical interview and an HR interview.

Aptitude Test

The first round will be conducted on the AMCAT platform. It consists of 4 sections.

• Verbal Ability
• Quants
• Logical Reasoning
• Code Debugging
   

Verbal Ability

This section focuses on English Grammar and Comprehension. This part will include questions about prepositions, articles, idioms, phrases, jumbled sentences, etc. 

In terms of comprehension, there will be 3-4 paragraphs followed by 4-5 questions. The total number of questions will be 22-25, with an 18-minute time limit.

Quants

This section is mainly standard Mathematics. Basic Algebra,  Basic Trigonometry, Profit & Loss, Percentage, Pipes & Cisterns, Work & Time, Mensuration, Boats & Streams, etc., are covered in this part. This part will have 15 to 18 questions.

Logical Reasoning

This section will include various questions such as puzzles, jumbled words, series, comparisons, analogy, blood relationships, and so on. There will be 16-18 questions in this section.

Code Debugging

There will be 7 programming questions to answer in 20 mins. You are not required to write the entire program's code. You simply need to add the missing lines to the code provided for that specific problem. Each statement will have 3-4 test cases, and you must pass all of them.

Technical Round

The technical round is the second round of the off-campus drive. It mainly consists of basic DSA questions and questions from your majors and your project. The interviewer assesses your technical skills, so prepare all the tech you mentioned in your CV. 

HR Round

This round is the final round of the drive. Questions from your background, core values and personality will be there. You should be as honest as possible, and this round will be yours!

CTS GenC

Cognizant also conducts its own hiring process named CTS GenC (Cognizant Technology Solution Generation-Cognizant). It solely focuses on freshers or candidates with no work exp. It is one of the very effective ways to join Cognizant.

It also has three rounds:

• Written Test
• GenC
• GenC Next
   

Written Test (Aptitude Test)

The written test is the same as the Aptitude test discussed in the above section. It is conducted through the AMCAT platform. This test will be around 110 mins.

GenC Interview

Candidates who pass the written exam are invited to the GenC interview. This includes programming, data structure, and algorithm questions. GenC is essentially a technical interview followed by some general questions. The candidate is asked some easy and a few harder questions in this round.

GenC Next Interview

This round is only open to individuals who have passed the GenC interview. Even if a candidate does not pass the GenC Next interview but qualifies for the GenC interview, they are employed for the appropriate post. Typically, candidates with some coding experience are the only ones who can pass the GenC Next interview phase and get a higher job profile. This interview focuses on the candidate's understanding of programming ideas and algorithms and their personality qualities, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities.

You can also refer to how to apply for and crack the Cognizant GenC Next to know more about the CTS GenC exam.

Job Platforms

There are many job platforms which can help you get ways to join Cognizant. It includes AMCAT, eLitmus test, Naukri.com and many more. If you keep a keen eye on their job updates, you’ll probably get a job update soon.

There are many insta handles and telegram channels nowadays which gives daily update on recent hiring. You can also check them out too.

Employee Referrals

An effective way to get an interview opportunity at Cognizant is by having an employee referral. You can reach out to people who are working at Cognizant and ask for a referral. It is one of the best ways to join Cognizant. You can find employees working in Cognizant on LinkedIn.

There are three steps to receiving a successful LinkedIn referral:

• Find the right person.
• Send the right message.
• Do follow-up
   

Whom to Contact and Message

Step 1: Find people who work in Cognizant.

Step 2: You should prefer people who work in the same field. For example, if you are a front-end developer, you should ask another front-end developer to refer you to the available position. Based on your CV and skills, they can make a better decision about you.

Step 3: You can only send messages to a certain number of people on LinkedIn. People who have been active on LinkedIn in the last month are preferred. In this context, activity refers to a like/comment/post/share.

Message Content to Include

To choose what to send, follow these DOs and DONTs.

• Let's skip the small talk and get right to the topic. Don't start a conversation by saying "Hi" and then waiting for the other person to react.
   
• Give proper context. Don't just ask, "Can you refer me?" without providing any background.
   
• Maintain the message's informational nature. Please provide the job id and URL of the position in your message (from the company career page, LinkedIn, etc.).
   
• You must sell yourself. Mention anything you want to show off. For example, any technical talks you've given, open-source contributions you've done, your personal website, and so on.
   
• Make a template. A proper referral message template containing the above points will make applying to many opportunities easier.
   

What to do After Sending a Message

When you send messages for referrals, you’ll soon be receiving multiple responses. 

People are busy and may not react or even read your message immediately. If you do not receive a response, send a follow-up message in a few days. Send no more than 2-3 follow-ups over the course of 10-15 days. If that still doesn't work, look for someone else to refer you to.

Sample Questions 

Some sample questions for the selection process are as follows:

Aptitude Round

Some of the examples of aptitude round questions are:

• What is the average of the first seven multiples of 14?
   
• What is the difference in the place value of 5 in the numeral 75445863?
   
• A father is twice as old as his son. If 20 years ago, the age of the father was 10 times the age of the son, what is the present age of the father?
   
• A pipe can fill a tank in 7 hours, and another pipe can empty the tank in 10 hours. If both pipes are opened simultaneously, can the tank be filled in?
   
• A running man crosses a bridge of length 500 meters in 4 minutes. At what speed is he running?
   

You can refer to the Aptitude section of Coding Ninjas to prepare for your aptitude test. You can also check your Aptitude Preparation to get a better final exam score.

Coding Round

Questions on arrays, strings and other data structures will be asked in the coding round.

You can refer to the problem list to prepare yourself for the coding round of the selection process.

To clear the coding test, you need a good command of Data structure and algorithms. But first, get familiar with languages like C++, Java, Python, etc. You can also choose to learn the basics of Python DSA, Java DSA or C++ DSA from scratch. Afterwards, you should start with competitive programming. 

Technical Interview

• In Java, how do you reverse a string?
• How do you tell if a string is a palindrome?
• How can you count the number of times a character appears in a String?
• How can you tell if the provided two strings are anagrams?
• How can you figure out how many vowels and consonants are in a String?
   

You can refer to Cognizant Interview Questions to have a look at the coding questions asked in the interview.  Visit our interview questions blog to prepare, and you will be amazed by your result. You can also practice interview puzzles. To ace interviews, you can add IT certifications to your resume. 

HR Interview

• Tell me about yourself that you didn’t mention in the resume.
• Why do you want to join Cognizant?
• Which values of yours align with the values of Cognizant?
• Do you have any problem with relocation?
• Are you flexible in working day and night shifts?
   

You can refer to the Cognizant interview bundle and Interview bundles to know about questions asked throughout the interview process. You can also refer to Cognizant interview experience to know about other successful candidates' interview exp. Make sure to visit our guided path too.

You can also refer to our test series, practice interview problems, free coding competitions, and competitive programming to check your preparation. You can also take a product-based company course to strengthen your preparation for the next level.

Do refer to our youtube video to better understand mistakes we generally make in interviews that we should not:

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the core values of Cognizant?

“Start with a point of view; seek data, build knowledge; always strive, never settle; always work as one; do the right thing the right way ” are the core values of Cognizant.

How difficult is it to get into Cognizant?

The selection process for Cognizant is easy. You should be familiar with the basics, and you can easily crack all the rounds.

Who is the current CEO of Cognizant?

Brian Humphries is the CEO of Cognizant.

Does Cognizant provide work from home to its employees?

Yes, there is an option for working from home, but the company can call its employee into the office whenever needed.

What is the salary of Cognizant’s fresher?

Cognizant offers approximately 4.5 LPA INR to its freshers. It varies according to the respective company rules.

Conclusion

This article briefly various ways to join Cognizant. We discussed the campus recruitment process, including on-campus and off-campus recruitment. We also discussed the selection process in detail. Afterwards, we discussed applying with the help of the job platform, employee referrals etc. At last, we discussed how to ask for referrals and some sample questions asked in Cognizant.

We hope this blog has helped you know various ways to join Cognizant. If you like to learn more, you can check out our articles: 

• Performance test engineer at Cognizant
• Data engineer at Cognizant
• DevOps engineer at Cognizant
• Cognizant Preparation Guide
• Job Opportunities at Cognizant
   

Refer to our Guided Path on Coding Ninjas Studio to upskill yourself in Data Structures and Algorithms, Competitive Programming, JavaScript, AWS and many more! If you wish to test your competency in coding, check out the mock test series and take part in the contests hosted on Coding Ninjas Studio! 

If you have just started your learning process and are looking for questions from tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, etc. For placement preparations, you must look at the problems, interview experiences, and interview bundles.

Nevertheless, consider our paid courses to give your career an edge over others!

Happy Learning!