Pros
Remote work Competitive compensation Provides mobile phone service
Cons
- Terrible reputation within the Healthcare industry (will be difficult for you to get employed by a top consulting firm if you are coming from Cognizant) - Always felt like I was just filling a open seat when I worked at Cognizant - Several people who joined the healthcare practice around the same time as me quit within six months to return to their previous company or take a new job - Only ever really got to know 2-3 people my entire time working for Cognizant in a virtual environment (300,000+ person company) - Annual raise is pitiful (2-3%) - Bonus is based on individual and company performance; employees will only get about 80% of their bonus if they meet expectations - No promotion within two years of hire date - Recruiting sells a picture of Cognizant that is not reality (e.g., can get promoted any time, Flex Fridays, unlimited sick days that can be used as PTO, opportunity for cross-functional work, big focus on career development, etc.) - No meaningful performance management structure or role competency guidelines; employees are required to regularly set career goals but they are meaningless and don't have any recognizable correlation or effect on career progression - Leadership admits, "Cognizant has a habit of staffing projects with people who don't have the necessary expertise to do the work" - Top healthcare leadership has left the company rapid fire in the past year - Leadership does not support the projects they sell and will throw the project team under the bus when the project falls apart - Leadership may not be present at all on a project; worked for 6 months without any type of project supervisor or someone checking in on my work, which caused me to be totally unmotivated - Leadership subjects project teams to verbal abuse (aggressive use of profanity, hanging up on calls, responds with "I don't care what you are saying" when trying to explain something) - Employees have mental breakdowns due to work and need to take time off to recover (two members of my three person team had to take a leave of absence) - Human resources does not act on these types of escalations; no actions or responses when I raised concerns about not having a supervisor or getting any guidance whatsoever on my projects - The IT team and process is a total nightmare - getting the technical support needed to be successful on your projects is a huge challenge