Looking For A Job At An IT Firm? Cognizant Says Your Liberal Arts Degree Is Enough! —Here's Why

Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of the world’s largest IT firms, is ready to challenge the status quo of tech hiring, stating that an arts degree may be all you need to thrive in the ever-evolving tech space, which will now be dominated by artificial intelligence.

In an interview with Fortune, Cognizant's CEO, Ravi Kumar S, explained how AI is ushering in a new trend of hiring. He adds that the AI is not a displacement strategy but an amplifier of human potential.

“AI is an amplifier of human potential. It's not a displacement strategy," said Ravi Kumar, adding that Cognizant is ramping up hiring of school graduates, including those from liberal arts backgrounds, and investing in apprenticeship programs across 30 states.

“So many companies have a pyramid with the bottom where school graduates are. That pyramid is going to be broader and shorter, and the path to expertise is going to be faster," he explained. “I can take a school graduate and give them the tooling so they can actually punch above their weight.”

Keeping that in mind, Cognizant is moving beyond STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic) disciplines. "We're now going to hire non-STEM graduates. I'm going to liberal arts schools and community colleges," Kumar said.

But why exactly liberal arts schools and community colleges? Kumar believes these students bring essential skills for an AI-powered world, where problem finding and conceptualisation become as important as technical expertise.

"There is an equitable distribution of problem solvers and problem finders... anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, journalists; people who can be more purposeful problem finders," he said.

The Cognizant CEO adds that the education system must adapt, now that AI is readily available to all students.

"AI is expertise at your fingertips. If education systems adapt, we will have a productivity bump. The last time the productivity bump happened was in the Internet revolution. After that, productivity has been flat," he said.

Earlier this year, IT company Cognizant deployed a strategic initiative to industrialise 'agentic AI' across enterprises by deploying 1,000 context engineers over the next year, according to a release.