Cognizant trolled for offering Rs 2.52L offer to fresher; gets trolled
Cognizant Announces Salary Hikes as Low as 1% Amid Ongoing Fresher Package Controversy: Report
On August 13, Cognizant, a leading American IT services and consulting firm, found itself under social media trolling after a job posting offering fresh graduates an annual salary of Rs 2.52 lakh went viral. The announcement was part of an off-campus recruitment drive for the 2024 batch, targeting new IT graduates. This posting quickly captured widespread attention online.
🚨 Cognizant has announced an exciting off-campus mass hiring drive, welcoming applications from candidates belonging to the 2024 batch.
— Indian Tech & Infra (@IndianTechGuide) August 13, 2024
Application deadline – August 14.
Package – INR 2.52 LPA pic.twitter.com/Btuwf2GoEw
The job posting was highlighted by the X page “Indian Tech & Infra,” which stated: “Cognizant has announced an exciting off-campus mass hiring drive, welcoming applications from candidates belonging to the 2024 batch.
Poor salary hike in Cognizant. Felling very frustrated
byu/No-Bother-189 indevelopersIndia
Application deadline – August 14. Package – INR 2.52 LPA.” The offer, which translates to a monthly salary of Rs 21,000 before deductions, faced significant backlash from users who deemed it insufficient for the competitive IT sector.
The online reaction to the salary offer blended humor with disappointment. Some users found the offer laughable, while others expressed their discontent. One user sarcastically commented, “2.52 LPA is very generous. What will the graduates do with so much money?” Another user, Manu, criticized the package by comparing it to past salaries, noting, “This package was offered to the 2002 batches. No house, no free commutation, no free food. All this to be managed in just 18 to 19K rupees after PF deduction in metro cities.” Himanshu Rajawant humorously remarked, “That’s barely enough to cover a year’s rent in a village and a few packets of Maggi. Cognizant must be running an experiment to see if people can live on chai and hope.” Vishnu Pradeep provided a more analytical viewpoint, stating, “Tech companies hiring is a good sign while taking the recent layoffs into context. But 2.52 LPA is seriously concerning. 10 years ago, the average package was around 3 LPA. Instead of the emoluments growing, we have lower payouts now. Not sure if it’s due to higher competition (excess supply of candidates), lower projected profitability, or something else.”
Poor salary hike in Cognizant. Felling very frustrated
byu/No-Bother-189 indevelopersIndia
In addition to the social media reaction, concerns about compensation were also raised on Reddit. A user shared their frustration over salary hikes at Cognizant, recounting: “Man I worked super hard last year, to get a good GoPerform rating this year, in order to get a good salary hike in April this year. My manager had called me and said that I was supposed to get a 5-star rating, however since she had to balance out the rating among other team workers as well, she gave me a 4-star rating (which made no sense, as to why my hard work’s fruit i.e. rating will be lowered down for the sake of ‘other team workers’). Anyways, till 2023 we used to get a 12-15% hike at 3-star rating itself, hence I was hopeful I will get a decent hike with a 4-star rating. Surprise! In the month of April, CTS announced that they are going to delay our hikes to August, which means 4 more months. This means that apart from all the hard work we did for the last 12 months, we still had to meet the increasingly burdensome expectations of our manager for another quarter! Anyways I stayed hopeful that by the month of August I’ll get a good enough hike and will be able to switch companies with an even bigger salary hike. Guess what? A 4-star rating this year gave a 4% hike. It’s even worse for those who got a 5-rating and received only a 4.5% hike! Yes, you read it right! So for 16 months of grinding ourselves with a vague hope of getting a decent increase in salary, all we get is peanuts! And the CEO keeps posting mails about making profits in billions! I mean, they are reducing workforce and also reducing human resource compensation! So we are working harder than ever, and our hikes this year are less than ever! I’ve lost all enthusiasm to work, and I have no hopes left.”
Another Reddit user added, “The company made profits of more than 4.8bn this year. They used all sorts of cost-cutting methods including reducing workforce, and also reducing increment percentages. So we are working harder than ever and our hikes this year are lesser than ever. At this point, even not sure whether next year April we will be getting hikes.”
The situation highlights a pressing issue of inadequate compensation for IT professionals in India, reflecting broader concerns within the industry.
