I came to learn about this opportunity through GlassDoor. GlassDoor was immensely helpful to me towards doing some due diligence about this new company and the role.
Unfortunately, I was not selected to proceed further in the interview stage beyond Round 2, but I had a great time chatting with people from Wejo. The recruitment team at Wejo was phenomenal – they were courteous, prompt and very professional. The turnaround time for next steps and a decision was also quick which is fantastic.
That being said, I also felt that people I was speaking with at Wejo were not being entirely forthcoming about the company’s fiscal health and other challenges that are widely known in the public domain given that Wejo is now a publicly listed company on the NASDAQ.
In any event, this is how the process went for me:
1. I had applied online.
2. Recruiter had contacted me to do a phone screen.
3. Had a 45 minute phone interview.
4. A follow up call was scheduled with the hiring manager.
5. Virtual meeting followed over MS Teams with the hiring manager.
6. Decision was communicated by e-mail.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed my experience interviewing with Wejo. The people were very interactive with the candidate and I also had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions.
This role (from what I understood) was going to start the Corp Dev footing Wejo. They were looking for someone with strong M&A experiences with a deep focus on the transaction side (but it ought to be noted that job description was seeking someone with a strong strategy background, which can be somewhat misleading because strategy and deal transactions are two vastly different things, and the job description says absolutely NOTHING about M&A transaction experience).
For any person coming into this role, I was somewhat concerned as to how would the VP Corp Dev actually pursue inorganic growth avenues given that: 1). Wejo has yet to turn out a profit; and 2) Wejo’s corporate balance sheet does not have substantial funding to close deals (and even debit-equity options would not be feasible given that Wejo’s valuation and market cap is way too small). Upon asking these tough questions, I did not receive any straight-forward responses which is something I found to be somewhat perplexing.
Furthermore, Wejo had made an IPO on the NASDAQ very recently – but the company’s share value had dropped exponentially where as now it is flirting in penny stock territory to possibly even at risk of being de-listed from the stock exchange! Once again, I had raised this as an important question during the interviews, pressing as to how the company would turn around because I am sure no candidate would want to be in a new role and then s/he may have to start looking for a job again. Yet again, I did not get any transparency with respect these important and valid questions about Wejo’s financial health, which by the way, is all a matter of public information that is readily available.
I also found it to be quite strange, peculiar and somewhat unprofessional that the hiring manager did not have a copy of my resume during my interview, and was asking me where I had worked, what I did, etc. Another thing that I found to be rather perplexing is that the hiring manager had never worked on any M&A transactions (this is volunteered to me by the Interviewer / Hiring Manager).
Anyway, Wejo’s business plan looks ambitious and promising but I would be very skeptical if I were to be the person in this role given the financial challenges that I have noted. Nonetheless, I hope any other candidate vying for this opportunity will find my review of the interview process somewhat helpful and hopefully Wejo will take it upon themselves to be more candid with candidates. I am a passive-interest candidate (i.e. not aggressively looking for a role per se) but I’d say that I probably dodged a bullet by not joining Wejo. Good luck to anyone else considering Wejo as a potential employer!
