How Toyota Great Britain Brings CVs to Life with Willo’s Skilled-Based Hiring Approach

Greater Hiring Efficiency

More Equitable Hiring

Deeper Candidate Insights

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Toyota Great Britain partnered with Willo's video interview platform to revolutionise their emerging talent recruitment process, achieving significant hiring equity improvements and time savings across their apprentice, student, and graduate programs. By replacing traditional screening with asynchronous video interviews, the lean organization saved161 hours while making their skills-based hiring process more accessible and fairer for all candidates, including parents, caregivers, and neurodivergent applicants.

Meet Toyota Great Britain: An IconicBrand Innovating How it Hires.

Toyota Great Britain provides the sales and marketing functions, supporting its franchised network of dealerships for both Toyota and Lexus across the UK. While the Toyota brand commands global recognition, TGB operates as a relatively lean organisation, separate from Toyota's UK manufacturing operations.

Despite its size, Toyota Great Britain thinks big when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The company exceeded the automotive industry's “30% Club” benchmark for female representation well ahead of schedule. But for Luke Smith and the TGB talent team, that was just the beginning. They wanted to ensure best-in-class inclusive hiring practices that extended far beyond gender diversity.

When it was time to evolve their recruitment strategy, Toyota Great Britain needed a partner that could help the team look beyond the CV and discover talent that traditional screening methods might overlook. Thanks to Willo’s video recruitment platform, they've been able to bring candidate applications to life, support neurodiverse applicants, and make hiring inclusive and accessible for everyone.

The Hiring Challenge: Transcending Stereotypes and Reducing Hiring Bias

In the automotive industry hiring landscape, stereotypes can run deep. While Toyota Great Britain had already made significant strides in diversifying its workforce, it faced a persistent challenge: CV’s all look the same.

“CV’s can be an effective starting point sharing the broad experience of a candidate, but they don’t quantify the scope of impact the applicant has had within their role. Add the insurgence of AI tools, and now they are all increasingly starting to look and feel more generic, in addition to being optimized for search.”
- Luke Smith, Talent Acquisition, TGB

This challenge was especially acute for Toyota Great Britain’s early career recruitment, including apprentices, students, and graduates who represent the bulk of their Willo users. These candidates often have limited work experience, making it nearly impossible for their CVs to showcase their full potential."In emerging talent recruitment, it’s really hard for one applicant’s CV to stand out from another and for hiring decision makers to get a true sense of the applicant and their relevance for the role for which they have applied," explains Luke.

The functionality of TGB’s applicant tracking system couldn’t track drop-off rates through their hiring funnel, making it difficult to identify stages of the process which could be even more inclusive, where bias might be creeping in, or which candidates were facing barriers which meant they opted out of continuing in the process.

See How Video Interviews Can Transform Your Emerging Talent Hiring. Request a demo

Beyond the CV: Why Toyota Great Britain Chose Willo’s Accessible Recruitment Software

Toyota Great Britain began using Willo’s video interview software as part of its recruitment process four years ago and hasn’t looked back. The decision to partner with Willo wasn’t just about technology, it was about shared values. Willo’s human-first, continuously improving platform reflects Toyota’s own commitment to respect people, collaboration, and innovation that drives progress for all. Together, they’re reimagining recruitment in a way that moves beyond the CV and celebrates potential through CV screening alternatives.

Willo’s Candidate Screening Software Offered Exactly What Toyota Great Britain Was Looking For:

Brings CVs to life

Video responses allow candidates to demonstrate depth, personality, and potential that paper can’t capture.

Flexible, accessible format

Candidates can complete remote interviews on their own schedule – whether that’s after putting kids to bed, on a commute, outside of their working hours or any time that works for them.

Accessibility features

In addition to offering audio and video options to complement written formats, Willo includes text colour adjustments and other accessibility functions designed to support neurodivergent hiring and diverse communication needs.

Skills-based screening

By combining structured video interviewing with abstract reasoning assessments, Willo enables Toyota Great Britain to evaluate candidates on their skills and potential rather than solely their CVs. This helps narrow 3,000+ annual emerging talent applications down to the top 30 most capable future hires.

Perhaps most importantly, Willo’s asynchronous video interview format enables Toyota Great Britain to ask role-specific questions that reveal what really matters. This is especially important in early-career talent, where potential often outweighs experience.

“CVs don’t tell the full story. With Willo, we can ask the kind of role-specific questions that enable the candidate to really showcase their approach and what matters — critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and agility. When a candidate talks about how they created a positive customer experience or shares their approach when something hasn’t gone the way that they’d planned, it tells us far more than a CV can about who they are and their relevance to the vacancy.”
- Luke Smith, Talent Acquisition, TGB

Want to bring your candidate CVs to life and make hiring more inclusive? See how Willo can help

Shared Values: A True Partnership

What sets the Toyota Great Britain and Willo partnership apart isn’t just technology, it’s shared values.

Toyota Great Britain’s mantra of “Let’s Go Beyond” aligns perfectly with Willo’s commitment to continuous improvement and innovation based on customer feedback.

Both organisations share a commitment to making hiring accessible and equitable for everyone, not just specific demographics. This commitment to inclusive hiring and diversity hiring tools creates better outcomes for candidates and organisations alike.

The Results: Uncovering Hidden Talent and Supporting Inclusion

More Than Time Savings

Since 2023, Toyota Great Britain has saved an estimated 161 hours by using Willo’s asynchronous interviews, removing other lengthy steps in the process. But the real value goes far beyond efficiency, it’s about creating an equitable hiring process that works for everyone and enables every candidate to showcase their best self.

Accessibility for All Candidates Through Flexible Interview Scheduling

Willo has proven especially valuable for candidates who might otherwise be disadvantaged by traditional hiring processes, offering flexibility, accessibility, and a more human way to showcase potential:

Parents and caregivers can interview in the evening after children are in bed, without having to arrange childcare or take time off work.
Neurodivergent candidates benefit from accessibility features and the ability to prepare and respond at their own pace, in their preferred format and environment.
Early-stage talent and students gain an equal opportunity to demonstrate skills, curiosity, and communication ability, qualities that may not come through when their work experience is limited on a CV.
Candidates with career breaks or employment gaps can share their story in their own words, providing valuable context that a CV alone can’t capture.

Read More Customer Case Studies. Discover more stories

“By inviting candidates to participate in the video interview process, we’re able to ask questions specific for each role and to share their approach, which then enables them to bring their CV to life and depth to their experience,” Luke explains.

Discovering Depth Beyond the CV with Skills Based Hiring for Early Career Talent

For emerging talent with limited work experience, Willo reveals potential that would otherwise remain hidden. A candidate who only ever worked in a coffee shop might have a light CV, but when asked about customer service and what amazing customer service means to them, they can share insights about supporting diverse customers or turning around a difficult situation. These are experiences that could signal they would benefit from an entry level marketing or business role.

What’s Next: Continuing to Innovate

The partnership between Toyota Great Britain and Willo demonstrates that when hiring technology is built around people rather than just efficiency, everyone benefits – candidates get a fair chance to showcase their potential, hiring managers discover talent they would have missed, and organizations build more diverse, capable teams.