Cognizant doubles fresher hiring in 2025; CEO says company plans to hire more graduates to …

The IT service giant Cognizant has revealed its plans to hire 20,000 freshers this year. This number is more than double the amount hired in the previous year. Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S revealed the company’s plan to hire 20,000 freshers this year as part of the company strategy. Kumar added that with the new hiring plan in place, the company is trying to reshape its talent pyramid and support managed services and AI-led software development. He further revealed that Cognizant is now focusing on three areas — hiring freshers, increasing productivity through AI, and improving utilisation to manage human capital costs effectively.
Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S. emphasized the strategic importance of talent amplification as the firm accelerates its growth and innovation agenda. While the company’s overall headcount remained nearly flat, this move aims to build a stronger workforce pyramid, especially with the increase in managed services projects. The company is focusing on hiring freshers, increasing productivity through AI, and improving utilization to manage human capital costs effectively.
“As we stated at our Investor Day, we are hiring 20,000 freshers as part of our strategy, which is more than double what we did last year," Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said. "But it also comes equally with an overhead of carrying higher bench at a lower cost and actually offshore," he said.
“...with amplifying talent, we are strengthening our talent pipeline with skills needed for the AI era. As you heard us talk about during the Investor Day, we are upskilling our workforce at scale, leveraging AI to meet demand faster and identifying talent pools to address new areas unlocked by AI," added Kumar.
The company is also investing in AI upskilling, with over 1,400 early GenAI engagements already underway. Cognizant’s Synapse initiative has trained 400,000 professionals globally, with a goal of reaching 1 million individuals in advanced AI technologies.
Additionally, Cognizant reported a 7.45% year-on-year growth in revenue for the January-March quarter of 2025.