An employment website, Youth4work provides a unique platform whereby individuals can become self-aware of their skills
Technology is indeed playing vital role in changing the face of skill sourcing. Youth4work.com, a fast growing youth platform justifies the new wave of skill-based career in India. Headquartered in New Delhi, it is an innovative talent development initiative with a vision to be the preferred personal space for every aspiring to introspect, self-assess and improve his/her own skills. The user communities span across domains such as IT, engineering, sales and marketing, finance, retail, HR, Design and creativity, skill development verticals and more. There are over 14,000 companies using Youth4work and seven per cent of people on the platform who have been contacted by companies get hired. The ultimate need of the hour is fuller utilisation of human capital and technology resources available in the area. Rachit Jain, chief executive officer and founder, Youth4work, explains how it caters to the need of job aspirants to boost employability and employment.
How did you get idea for the business?
After completing my BTech in took a job with Mahindra & Mahindra in Mumbai. I was doing stupendously good and growing in the career graph at a rapid pace. But then I wanted to start something on my own, do something which nobody is doing and my product should help people across ages. I started JAGbros. I wanted to replicate the idea of display ads on yellow-black taxis of Mumbai like private radio taxis. But due to legal concerns the idea could not be materialized. But while setting up the process, I realized hiring is very difficult especially the right talent. So I ventured into this virgin market, and called it ‘Youth4work’.
What services do you provide?
Our services offered can broadly becate gorised as online education, prep tests and talent acquisition.
How do you advertise your business?
We don’t deal in the products where routine TVC/ marketing strategy works. Our offerings focus on our users. The better our offerings & technology, the more satisfied are our users. Thus the biggest marketing tool for Youth4work has been ‘Word of Mouth’.
What is the unique about your Platform?
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Uniqueness of Youth4work lies in its offerings. We are the only platform that starts the support right from the finding of college/ institute to getting the dream job. Youth4work.com is a ‘People Platform’ which empowers youth to assess themselves, improve their talents and showcase themselves for their talents and professional achievement.
We call what we are building ‘Human Tech’ which gathers intelligence and deep insights on each and every member of Youth4work.
What do you feel about the sustainability of start ups in India?
The terms start up and entrepreneurs are very fancy, which has lot of pulling attraction. But not all are able to sail across. Unfortunately people enter this world without clear vision and understanding of the kind of responsibilities it comes with. Start ups have been projected as the fancy world, but the truth is a complete contrast. One needs to have a vision, persistence, patience, believe in himself, and team leader qualities.
There is a bright future for start-ups provided the concept is unique. But there is a statutory warning attached that life of an entrepreneur is like a ‘bed of roses’.
Your future plans?
We feel the opportunity and the need is bigger than only jobs. The need is to build people intelligence, which personalises information and guides people to connect and collaborate. That is important as about 300 million people will enter India’s workforce in next few years. We would like to be the de facto platform where every youth, who is connected to the Internet, comes on board with us to improve oneself and become part of a talent communities.
How do you look at expansion?
About 98% of 1.3 Million users on our platform are from nearly 2000 different locations across India, the rest being International users, who have signed up themselves just to self-assess their talents (without any marketing!). Hence, expanding geographically will never be a constraint for us, our technology is smooth. Product wise, we will continue to strengthen our core, i.e. assessment based cost-effective talent solutions for the entire talent value chain.
Challenges faced till now?
The term startup sounds very fancy and pulls in lot of attraction from those around. If one has a killing instinct to so something for the society at large, has clear vision, persistence, passion, and belief in oneself, its sure to reap benefits in the long run. Hiring for my first two ventures was obviously a big challenge which led me to start youth4work. Even bigger challenge is making the team work with passion. If you are able to rope in the right talent and able to keep their interests intact, there is obviously no stoppage. The magic happens only when you fill in the right places with the exact people and give them sufficient reasons to perform.