Willo founder’s fears over lack of investment in society
WHEN the Covid pandemic began, Euan Cameron had already been developing his video interview business for a number of years and was able to hit the ground running.
Launching in 2020, Willo has grown its turnover 300 per cent each year since, driven by the widescale adoption of video during Covid-19, and is expected to reach £1 million in January.
Of the 30,000 interviews Glasgow-founded Willo facilitated in November, 17,000 have been offered jobs, across areas such as aviation, healthcare, retail and technology.
One of its biggest customers, airport services company ABM Industries, conducts around 8,000 Willo interviews a month and will hire up to half of those candidates without going to a face-to-face or live video interview, so the process has to be robust.
For a customer wishing to recruit a candidate into the country, Willo does a right-to-work screen, while, for many, the candidate will be hired to work in situ.
Mr Cameron’s 12-strong team operates across time zones to offer a near-24-hour service, with staff ranging from countries such as Ukraine, now relocated to places including Italy and the UK – “part of this year was horrible” – and from North America and the Philippines.
Mr Cameron started developing Willo in 2014. “What I was doing back then was asking people for videos rather than a CV, and I was offering people [positions] off the back of these videos,” he said.
“That was the moment I realised there was something in this. If I could, from watching a video a candidate’s done that lasts three minutes, to getting them in the office the next week, then there is something here we need to explore.”
Now, he said, “rather than interviewing you for a job, I can interview 10 of you at the same time with the same set of questions in the same order, all virtually and remotely, and you can do that in your own time”.
“They can be video, text, or audio answers, or a combination of all three.”
Although a UK business, the majority of its revenue comes from overseas, with 65 per cent coming from the US.
Customers range from Glasgow Airport owner IAG to Littlewoods, Coinbase, boohoo, Brakes and higher education hubs, including the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr Cameron continued: “From a general overview of the time, the past two-and-a-half years, three years now, have been really advantageous for the company. The biggest reason for that is the adoption of video technology.”
There is no longer anxiety around the process, he said, and investors have backed the firm with £1m.
“The massive normalisation of video has been amazing for us,” he said.
“The other big change we have seen that we have been pushing for a number of years now is the global talent workforce.
“You can hire anywhere in the world. Progress has been made because of Covid, it has really opened things up.
“Even if they just hired one or two people that were overseas or a different town or city, it was their first step into this, and for a lot of companies it has been successful because they have had a broader talent pool, which means more diversity. There is a huge amount of talent overseas that is completely untapped.”
Yet, he is considering quitting the UK. “I’ve been quite concerned for a long time about the direction of the UK in general. Brexit was one piece of it,” he said. “But 12 years ago there was the announcement of austerity – we’ve had a slow decline in investment of the key things that make the country successful, like education, healthcare, the general economy, higher education, those kind of things in my opinion have been under-invested in. That time is all lost.
“I’m quite concerned about the future for the country, just getting by with the bare minimum that we need. It should have happened 12 years ago, but there needs to be investment in areas that make people want to live here, stay here and invest here.
“I’ve done a lot of travelling and the countries that do things well are always thinking about how do we get more people here, how do we get them to stay and to invest here.
“All of those things need to be at the top of the agenda.
“I would be looking to move to
Spain in the next few years. I’ve got a daughter who is three and I don’t really want here growing up here. I just don’t see huge amounts of positive investment in the things that she would be using and needing.
“Even in the ‘90s when I grew up there was a lot more being done, developed, built, just good stuff, and there is nothing here that I can see her benefiting from.”
In the short-term, more growth is targeted, with an expanded and refined offering for mid-market customers who are more resilient in recessionary times. It means over the next 12 months Willo will be able double-down on
“not only acquiring more customers, but giving customers more ways of assessing candidates”.
He said: “We are making a lot of ground.”