Careers at Cognizant — Pune

Clinical research roles at Cognizant in Pune

Cognizant is an IT and business-process company with a large healthcare and life sciences vertical, and its Pune operations lean toward healthcare operations rather than trial sites. The biggest fresher entry point is medical coding within revenue cycle management, where teams assign ICD-10, CPT, and HCPCS codes to US healthcare claims. Alongside coding, Cognizant runs clinical data services and, in some centres, drug-safety and pharmacovigilance work for life sciences clients. This mix means a fresher can enter through coding or through a clinical data or safety role, depending on the account. The environment is process-driven, quality-audited, and tied to US healthcare and payer timelines.

What Cognizant looks for in freshers

Life sciences, pharmacy, nursing, physiotherapy, BDS, and allied health graduates are all common in coding intakes; clinical data and safety roles lean toward pharmacy and life sciences degrees. For coding roles, anatomy and physiology knowledge and a CPC-oriented understanding of ICD-10 and CPT give a real advantage, and a certification signals readiness. Safety roles want case-processing basics and MedDRA. ICH-GCP awareness helps for the clinical accounts. Cognizant screens hard for accuracy, since coding and safety errors carry compliance consequences.

Interview process

The process typically runs through an aptitude or domain assessment, a technical interview, and an HR round. Coding candidates face questions on code assignment, guidelines, and specificity; a short coding test on sample charts is common. Safety candidates walk through a case. HR covers US-shift readiness, since much of the work follows American business hours, along with package and joining details.

How to prepare

Match training to the entry point you want. For the largest opening, our Medical Coding course (3 months, ₹40K + GST) covers ICD-10, CPT, and coding guidelines and prepares candidates for certification-track roles. If you are targeting the clinical data or safety accounts, the Clinical Data Management course (3 months, ₹40K + GST) and Pharmacovigilance course (3 months, ₹40K + GST) fit those teams. iLearn CRI provides 100% placement assistance and works with 50+ hiring partners, including large healthcare-operations employers around Pune.