Paid work-sample trials that let career-break returners skip the CV screen
TL;DR Rejoinly runs paid two-week project trials for professionals, mostly women, coming back after a career break. Employers judge the work before they see the CV, so a three-year gap stops being the first filter. Mid-sized firms that cannot run their own returnship pay per trial and a fee on hire.
India's gap between men and women at work is among the widest anywhere - barely a quarter of working-age women hold jobs, and maternity breaks push a lot of them out[1]. The women who want back in hit a familiar wall. Screeners see the gap, assume the skills are rusty and move on.
Skill tests were meant to fix this, but they don't fix everything. A 2025 study found that language models scored Indian interview transcripts consistently lower than UK ones even with names removed, because of how people phrase answers[2]. So a returner who hasn't interviewed in years gets marked down on polish and not on ability.
A real piece of work is a fairer test, plain and simple.
The seed proposed skill assessments to cut hiring bias. That market is crowded, this directory included, so I narrowed it to the one group the CV screen hurts most - returners with five to fifteen years of experience before a break.
An employer posts a real, bounded task, like cleaning up a reconciliation, writing a test plan or drafting a campaign brief. Rejoinly shortlists returners for fit, pays each one a fixed stipend for about two weeks of part-time work, and runs a short refresher on current tools first if needed. Reviewers score the output against a rubric agreed in advance, with names, ages and dates hidden. Only the top scorers' profiles are revealed, and the employer interviews them about the work they just did.
The employer gets evidence instead of a guess. The returner gets paid, a piece of work to show and specific feedback even if they aren't hired. Rejoinly keeps the rubric library and reviewer pool, which get better with each role.
The employer pays twice - a per-trial fee that covers stipends, and a placement fee on hire. I found no public figure for returnship budgets in India, so working out the price is part of the sprint. The best first buyers are mid-sized IT services firms, GCCs and finance teams that want returners but lack the HR staff to run a programme like the big IT firms do[1]. Returners never pay.
Returnship hiring has moved from a few large firms to a broad trend. One staffing major reported in March 2026 that hiring through return-to-work programmes rose 32–35% after the pandemic, and 41% in tech and IT since 2023[3]. The labour codes, in force from November 2025, explicitly prohibit gender discrimination at work[4].
There's no public figure for the size of India's returner hiring market. The firmest signal is growth by sector from that staffing report, with GCCs up 39%, banking and financial services 35%, and pharma and healthcare 28%[3]. Those are growth rates and not spend, so treat them as evidence of intent.
India's largest careers platform for women sells hiring services to companies[5]. Large IT employers run their own returnships, but only to fill their own roles[1]. General job platforms focus on volume hiring, not on structured trials[6]. What's missing is a neutral, paid, work-first trial that a 300-person firm can buy one role at a time.
| Difficulty | Moderate (32/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹35–70 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
The platform is simple. The hard parts are designing tasks that are real without turning into free consulting, and keeping reviewer scoring consistent. You also have to fill both sides at once, which is no easy task - enough returners per role and enough employers posting real openings.
No licence needed to run paid work trials. The rules are about fair pay, contracts and candidate data.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI score the trial work or make the hiring call. The study cited above shows models can mark people down on phrasing, so trained reviewers score against the rubric.
Want to work out the AI layer for Rejoinly? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I think this is a good fit for a founder from recruiting or HR operations who can sell to hiring managers directly. If you're hoping to automate the whole thing then look elsewhere. Prove first that ten employers will pay for trials and that at least a quarter of finished trials lead to an offer.
Plan for roughly ₹35–70 L, mostly on the platform, reviewers, stipends for early trials and selling to employers.
No sector licence. You need written stipend terms under the labour codes, DPDP-compliant candidate data, GST and TDS on stipends.
Yes, career-break returners exist everywhere. Check local rules on paying trial workers and on hiring discrimination before you launch.
The free Rejoinly validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the stipend and contract checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for hiring managers and returners, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Rejoinly or something close to it? The make-or-break work is writing trial tasks employers trust and returners see as fair pay for real work. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.