Pros
I joined Cognizant in August, 2015 as a fresher and fortunately, I am going to leave it in few days. There are not much pros. After thinking hard, I was able to come across with few of them. 1. If you do not want to work much or stretch yourself, this is a place for you. It is a relaxed kind of job for freshers like any government job 2. Basic amenities and infrastructure of any location are very good.
Cons
1. It is often tough for a fresher to get his/her first project after the completion of training. 50% of them remain in bench for a lond period of time which does not count to their professional experience much. 2. Even if some freshers get deployed into project immediately after the training (the lucky ones), they may get maintenance work, ticketing etc. which is a sheer waste of their talent. Only around 20% of the people ( who are deployed into the project) get some good work like that of a developer. Hence, we see that around 10% of the freshers manage to get some good stuff. 3. Salary is very bad for the freshers. Hike is also extremely poor. 4. Unlike other IT companies like Infosys, low level management is extremely bad. There will be absolutely no one to guide you if you want some kind of help. They do not care about freshers. Many a times, it is like you are on your own. 5. Bad training. Seriously, their only aim is to anyhow complete the training. 6. Deployment of freshers into the project is completey random. A guy who is not much technically sound can get a very good project while the deserving guys may get the bench. 7. In terms of transparency is absolutely 0.