Training centres, residential academies, school-to-work programmes, apprenticeships and entrepreneurship initiatives all define success differently. Start with your operating model, then connect mobilisation, learning, employers and longer-term outcomes.
| Priya S. | 12th pass | call back?? |
| Priya Shinde | HSC | dup? |
Five places, one young woman. Nobody can see she's about to quit.
Many organisations combine two or three. Start with the closest match, then borrow only the parts that solve a real programme problem.
Youth move through mobilisation, screening, a batch, assessment and placement.
Learners live and learn together through a longer, high-touch programme.
Students explore pathways, build work readiness and move into college or work.
You connect prepared candidates to employers, OJT or apprenticeship opportunities.
You support women, persons with disabilities or excluded groups into decent work.
Youth build a livelihood through micro-enterprise, freelancing or collectives.
Not sure which one you are? Bring one tracker and describe a normal week. The model usually becomes clear quickly.
These come up in almost every first conversation we have with youth & employability teams.
"A quarter of our offers never became a joining."
Offers go into the funder sheet the day they're made. Nobody checks who actually turned up on day one.
"A third of the batch was gone by week three."
Absences get tallied at month-end, so the counsellor calls after the candidate has already taken another job.
"After the first job change, we lose them."
The number changes, the follow-up sheet goes cold, and the unreachable quietly drop out of the retention rate.
"Three funders, three definitions of 'placed'."
One wants an offer letter, one wants a salary slip, one wants 90 days in the job. We keep three trackers for the same candidates.
The people and screens above are illustrative. These are real systems we've built with partners, and each write-up says what we built and how long it took.
Pankh (persons with disability) and TRRAIN Her (women) run in one system, from regional teams down to each trainee, with centre and placement approvals and automatic certificates. Live in four months.
Read the case study →The/Nudge Institute10+tools connected into one recordFuture Perfect runs admissions, payments and refunds, the learning platform, Zoom and WhatsApp through one system, with screens for trainers, telecallers and verifiers.
Read the case study →Avanti Fellows8,000students on prioritised call queuesA telecalling system that pulls students from their database and shares calls fairly across 10 to 15 telecallers. Live in four months.
Read the case study →Recognise your programme? Tell us where the work gets stuck and we'll suggest a useful first version.
This is one operating model, not a template for every youth & employability organisation. Use it to see how everyday work, follow-up and management decisions can connect.
Stage 01 · Pick the right batch
Mobilisers under target pressure fill seats with anyone who says yes, and a third of the batch leaves by week three. The data shows which channels bring in youth who finish and get placed.
| ID | Candidate | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| YE-2217 | Priya Shinde | College visit | Selected |
| YE-2231 | Sameer Khan | Call overdue | |
| YE-2240 | Kavya Jadhav | Alumni referral | Interview Thu |
| YE-2244 | Rahul Pawar | Community meeting | Test pending |
Stage 02 · Keep the batch
Youth leave for reasons you can often fix: a travel cost, a family emergency, a trainer who lost them in module two. Daily attendance and module scores show who needs a call while it can still help.
| ID | Candidate | Attendance | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| YE-2198 | Anjali More | 71% | Call today |
| YE-2203 | Imran Shaikh | 78% | Travel support |
| YE-2210 | Sneha Kale | 82% | Module 3 retest |
| YE-2217 | Priya Shinde | 93% | On track |
Stage 03 · Place and verify
Candidates turn down offers once they hear the shift timing, the commute or the deductions nobody explained. Track the gap between offer, joining and the first salary slip.
| ID | Candidate | Role · Take-home | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| YE-2217 | Priya Shinde | Retail store · ₹14,500 | Joined, verified |
| YE-2203 | Imran Shaikh | Warehouse · ₹13,200 | Unconfirmed |
| YE-2210 | Sneha Kale | Call centre · ₹15,000 | Slip pending |
| YE-2198 | Anjali More | Warehouse · ₹14,000 | Declined, night shift |
Stage 04 · Keep them working
The first three months decide whether a job sticks. Candidates quit over a bad supervisor, a long commute or a first salary that didn't cover rent. Regular check-ins catch this early.
| ID | Candidate | Day 90 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| YE-2217 | Priya Shinde | Working | At risk |
| YE-2156 | Deepak Gaikwad | Unreachable | Try second contact |
| YE-2149 | Pooja Nair | Left, re-placed | Re-placed |
| YE-2162 | Sachin Mane | Working | On track |
Most placement numbers stop at the offer. Follow one illustrative cohort all the way, with the unreachable kept in the count.
Illustrative numbers. We report both rates, so the retention figure can't flatter you.
Choose the parts that match your pathway. A school career programme should not be forced into the same system as a residential academy or an apprenticeship network.
Move from leads to eligible cohorts without duplicate lists or delayed calls.
Track assessments, evidence, certifications and re-attempts by skill.
Manage relationships, job orders, role details, interviews and feedback.
Verify joining, attendance, stipends, proof and conversion to employment.
Schedule check-ins and keep job changes, exits and earnings in one journey.
Follow business milestones or individual workplace support without losing context.
The stages show the story. This is the checklist your procurement, finance and M&E teams will look for. We'll show each one working in the walkthrough.
| Capability | What it covers | Where it runs today |
|---|---|---|
| Admission and eligibility | Age, education and income checks, a document checklist with verification status, and a duplicate check across centres. | Configured to you |
| Fees, deposits and refunds | Instalments, refundable deposits, stipends and refunds, with payment receipts on the candidate record. | Live at The/Nudge |
| Batches and trainers | Batch calendars, trainer allocation and substitutes, session attendance and trainer load by centre. | Configured to you |
| Several programmes and funders | One candidate across programmes, each with its own eligibility, attendance cut-off, placement definition and funder tag. | Configured to you |
| Assessment and certification | Module scores, SSC or internal assessment results, and certificates generated once criteria are met. | Live at TRRAIN |
| Scheme evidence | SIDH IDs, attendance, batch photos and placement proof put together for PMKVY, DDU-GKY or state mission claims. | Configured to you |
| Placement and retention | Openings, offers, joining proof, salary slips, check-ins at 30, 90, 180 and 365 days, and re-placements linked to the first job. | Configured to you |
| Employers | Employer records, openings, visit notes and 90-day retention by employer. | Configured to you |
| Donor reporting and audit trail | Grant-wise cohorts, deliverable counts ready for invoices, and a change log on every record. | Configured to you |
| Integrations | LMS, Zoom, WhatsApp, payment gateway and accounting (Zoho Books, or exports for Tally), plus exports for scheme portals. | Live at The/Nudge |
| Roles and permissions | Zone, state, partner, centre and batch levels. Each role sees only its own candidates, and sensitive records can be restricted further. | Live at TRRAIN |
| Field and offline | Mobile forms that work offline in the local language, for mobilisers, counsellors and alumni callers. | Configured to you |
'Live at' names a real system with that capability. Everything else is configured per programme, so not every build includes every row.
Most AI projects stall because the records underneath are messy. So we work in a fixed order.
Every field has to earn its place by helping someone decide something. If nobody uses it, we don't collect it.
A system people avoid is worse than a spreadsheet. We design around shared phones, patchy signal and WhatsApp.
On clean, connected records, AI can read paperwork, draft reports and flag who needs attention. A person always checks.
Where you start depends on where you are. If your records are already in good shape, we can move to AI quickly. If they're in notebooks, we start there, and we don't start from zero.
Offline forms, local languages, links to government IDs and AI features are set up to suit each programme's needs and consent rules, so not every build includes all of them.
We picked the jobs that save youth & employability teams the most hours. Each starts with a problem we hear often, and each keeps a person in charge of the decision. How we think about AI →
“We have thousands of salary slips as photos, and funders want take-home pay, not CTC.”
Your team still decides: The placement officer confirms the amounts before saving.
“Our alumni team can't call 20,000 people at 90, 180 and 365 days.”
Your team still decides: Any 'left job' or 'need help' reply creates a personal call within two days.
“Placement officers shortlist from memory, so the same few candidates go to every drive.”
Your team still decides: The placement officer reviews every shortlist before it reaches the employer.
“Our candidates freeze in their first English interview, and trainers can't run mock interviews for 40 people.”
Your team still decides: The trainer reviews a sample each week and talks the feedback through.
“With 90 centres, head office hears a batch is emptying weeks too late.”
Your team still decides: It shows when each centre last updated, and the manager checks that first.
“We know people leave jobs, but not why, so we keep placing them with the same employers.”
Your team still decides: The coordinator reads every note marked as a serious concern.
Young people's first jobs ride on these calls. These lines don't move, whoever's asking.
Completion and placement for everyone they brought in. It changes how they pitch the course.
Module results for the batch on one screen, and a quarterly note on how past batches are doing at work.
90-day retention by employer, so candidates stop getting pushed into jobs they quit fast.
Completion, joining and retention by channel, centre and trade, with cost per enrolment alongside.
Cohort retention at 3, 6 and 12 months, with follow-up coverage and income change.
If you reached 70% of your alumni at month six, the retention rate of those you reached flatters you. The ones you can't reach are more likely to be out of work. We report retention for the whole cohort, with coverage alongside.
Funders notice. It's the kind of honesty that gets you renewed.Most systems launch in three to four months. The timeline moves with the number of programmes and roles, how messy the old data is, and how many tools need connecting.
Tell us where the work gets stuck today. Spreadsheets, notebooks, WhatsApp groups, all of it.
You show us how the programme runs. We'll tell you straight if you need a new system, a better workflow or nothing at all.
We map how your programme works, talk to the people who'll use it, review the tools you use today and hand you a System Blueprint, a clear plan of what we'll build.
Working screens every 2 to 4 weeks, tested by your field team in your own terms. We clean up your old spreadsheets and move them across.
Field training and launch, then 30 to 60 days of close support. After that, the system keeps changing as your programmes do.
We connect to your LMS, WhatsApp, Zoom, payment gateways, Zoho Books or Tally exports and SIDH exports, rather than replacing what already works. Zoho licences sit in your organisation's name, and everything exports whenever you want it.
The questions your finance head and IT lead will ask, answered before the call.
Zoho licences are bought in your organisation's name and hosted in the Zoho data centre region you choose, including India. We work inside your account.
Every record exports to Excel or CSV whenever you want, including the day you stop working with us. You're not locked in to us for support either.
Each person sees only the records their role needs. Records of persons with disability or trafficking survivors can be restricted to named staff.
Edits are logged with who made them and when, so an audit or a funder query doesn't start from memory.
Consent is recorded for each purpose, and we agree up front how long data is kept and when it's deleted. ZolaShield, our DPDP platform, shows where you stand.
AI features run on your records under your account's controls. Beneficiary records never go into public AI tools.
Use these focused implementation guides alongside the sector playbook.
We’ll map what your team does now, identify the smallest useful first version and show where follow-up, learning and reporting can share the same information, without forcing your programme into a generic template.
If budget is tight, ask about the Built for Impact Programme, which gives eligible nonprofits free Zoho credits.
The same approach, shaped to each kind of work.
