1. Cognizant GenC — Complete Preparation Guide

GenC is an entry-level role for freshers who have basic programming knowledge and good communication skills. The focus is on trainability rather than deep technical expertise.

What examiners look for:

• Ability to understand and apply fundamentals
• Logical thinking and clear communication
• Capability to work in teams and learn quickly
• Basic programming confidence (not advanced)

Skill-wise preparation breakdown:

A) Aptitude & Reasoning

Topics to master:

• Number systems, percentages, profit-loss, time–work, time–distance
• Logical puzzles, seating arrangement, coding-decoding, series, Venn diagrams

Why it matters:
Most candidates get filtered in the first round because they underestimate aptitude.

Tip: Solve 20–30 aptitude questions daily for 3–4 weeks.

B) Verbal & Communication

• Reading comprehension
• Basic grammar and sentence formation
• Ability to explain ideas fluently

GenC interviews include questions like:
“Introduce yourself,” “Tell me about a challenge you faced,” “What motivates you?”

C) Programming — Basic & Applied

Topics:

• Loops, arrays, conditional statements, functions
• OOP concepts (polymorphism, inheritance, abstraction, encapsulation)
• Basic SQL queries

You may get MCQs like:

• Output prediction
• Error identification
• Find the correct syntax

D) HR Interview

Be ready to speak about:

• Final year project (problem–solution–results)
• Why you chose Cognizant
• Teamwork examples, leadership situations

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GenC Overall Strategy

Week	Focus
1–2	Aptitude + English
3–4	Basic coding + OOP
5	Resume preparation + mock interviews

Goal: Prove you are a good learner who can be trained for projects.

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2. Cognizant GenC Elevate — Complete Preparation Guide

GenC Elevate evaluates strong problem solvers who have intermediate knowledge of coding and data structures.

What examiners look for:

• Ability to solve real coding problems
• Clean, optimized, and logical code
• Knowledge of DBMS + SQL
• Strong fundamentals in OOP

Skill-wise preparation breakdown:

A) Coding + DSA

Important topics:

• Arrays & strings (most tested)
• Searching, sorting
• HashMap usage
• Two pointers
• Recursion basics
• Dynamic programming (intro level)

Example problems:

• Longest substring without repeating characters
• Two-sum / Three-sum
• Rainwater trapping
• String compression / anagram check

Elevate gives coding problems closer to LeetCode Easy/Medium level.

B) SQL + DBMS

Be ready for:

• JOIN queries
• Primary key, foreign key, candidate key
• Normalization
• ACID properties

They often ask you to write a query without an IDE.

C) Technical Interview Expectations

You must explain:

• Logic of the program
• Time and space complexity
• Limitations and improvements

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⭐ GenC Elevate Strategy

Week	Focus
1–3	DSA + 2 coding problems daily
4	SQL + DBMS revision
5	Mock coding interview + behavioral questions

Goal: Prove you are logically strong and can contribute in coding projects quickly.

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3. Cognizant GenC Pro — Complete Preparation Guide

GenC Pro expects hands-on development knowledge such as full-stack or backend development.

🎯 What examiners look for:

• Practical implementation of coding
• End-to-end project understanding
• Software development lifecycle knowledge
• Ability to write clean and modular code

Skill-wise preparation breakdown:

A) Development Specialization

Choose one stack and master it deeply:

Backend	Frontend	Full-Stack
Java + Spring Boot	React / Angular	MERN Stack
Python + Django	Vue	Java + Spring + React
.NET	—	—

Topics required:

• REST API
• Authentication
• Sessions & cookies
• MVC architecture
• Exception handling

B) Databases

• SQL (advanced queries)
• ORMs (Hibernate / JPA / Entity framework — if applicable)

C) Project Preparation

You MUST speak confidently about:

• Problem statement
• Architecture of solution
• Tools used (Git, Postman, DB, APIs, libraries)
• Optimizations in the project
• Challenges faced + solutions

This is where most GenC Pro candidates fail — they build projects but cannot explain them.

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⭐ GenC Pro Strategy

Week	Focus
1–2	Choose & strengthen one development stack
3–4	Project improvement + deployment + documentation
5	Mock technical interview + system design basics

Goal: Prove you are development-ready and can start contributing with minimal training.

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4. Cognizant GenC Next — Complete Preparation Guide

GenC Next is the highest and most prestigious track, often compared to top product-based hiring difficulty.

What examiners look for:

• Advanced data structures and algorithms
• Ability to solve highly optimized coding problems under time pressure
• Strong understanding of system design
• Depth in a specialization (Cloud, Cybersecurity, ML, Data Engg, etc.)

Skill-wise preparation breakdown:

A) Advanced DSA

Topics:

• Trees, binary search trees
• Graphs (Dijkstra, BFS, DFS)
• Tries
• Segment trees and Fenwick tree
• Bit manipulation
• Complex DP

Problems expected:

• LeetCode Medium/Hard difficulty

B) Low Level + High Level System Design

You should know:

• Microservices vs monolithic architecture
• Load balancing
• Caching and indexing
• CAP theorem
• Messaging queues
• API gateway

C) Specialization Knowledge

You must have strong command in one domain, for example:

• AI/ML: algorithms, sklearn, model training, evaluation metrics
• Cloud: AWS/Azure services, storage, compute, VPC
• Cybersecurity: networking + encryption basics + OWASP
• Data Engineering: ETL pipelines + Spark + SQL optimization

D) Technical Interview Expectations

You will be tested for:

• Code optimization techniques
• Real-world handling of large-scale problems
• Design thinking & problem breakdown

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GenC Next Strategy

Week	Focus
1–4	Daily DSA + LeetCode contests
5–6	System design + specialization track
7	Mock interviews + project defense + resume polishing

Goal: Prove you are industry-ready with advanced coding + engineering mindset.

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Final Overview Comparison

Track	Focus	Evaluation Level	Type of Candidate
GenC	Basics + Aptitude + Communication	Beginner	Trainable fresher
GenC Elevate	DSA + SQL + Coding	Intermediate	Logical problem solver
GenC Pro	Project + Full Development Skills	Advanced	Developer with hands-on knowledge
GenC Next	Advanced DSA + System Design + Specialization	Expert	Top-tech performer