Cognizant to hire 20,000 freshers in 2025 to support AI-led software services

US IT firm Cognizant, which has a huge employee base in India, has announced plans to hire 20,000 freshers in 2025 -- a move intended to reshape the company's talent pyramid, particularly to support managed services and AI-led software development.

While the company's overall headcount remained nearly flat compared to previous quarter at 3,36,300, Cognizant's leadership highlighted the strategic importance of talent amplification as the firm accelerates its growth and innovation agenda.

"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.

This year, Kumar noted that the company plans to hire many more fresh graduates to build a stronger workforce pyramid, especially since managed services projects have increased over the past two years. "But it also comes equally with a overhead of carrying higher bench at a lower cost and actually offshore," he said.

He said the company is focusing on three areas -- hiring freshers, increasing productivity through AI, and improving utilisation to manage human capital costs effectively. Cognizant shared that 14,000 former employees have rejoined the firm, with 10,000 more in pipeline.

"...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," Kumar said.

The New Jersey-headquartered firm has reported 7.45 per cent year-on-year growth in revenue to USD 5.1 billion for the January-March quarter of 2025.

Cognizant, which has a substantial chunk of employees in India, has reported 7.45 per cent year-on-year growth in revenue to USD 5.1 billion for March quarter of 2025.

It had earned a revenue of USD 4.7 billion in Q1 2024.

Cognizant follows January-December financial year.

The company has raised its full-year growth guidance to 3.9-6.4 per cent, from 2.6-5.1 per cent earlier.

It now expects a full-year (2025) revenue between USD 20.5-21 billion.

Revenue in Q1 was contributed by Health Sciences (USD 1.6 billion), Financial Services (USD 1.4 billion), Products and Resources (USD 1.3 billion), and Communications, Media & Technology (USD 0.8 billion).

Cognizant's total employee count fell by 500, reaching 3,36,300 at the end of Q1.

On a trailing twelve-month basis, bookings increased 3 per cent year-over-year to USD 26.7 billion. However, bookings in the first quarter declined 7 per cent year-over-year. Q1 2025 bookings included four large deals (deals with a total contract value of USD 100 million or greater).