Ex-Wells Fargo Exec Who Alleged Fake Job Interviews Plans to Sue Over His Firing

In 2013, a group of Black Wells Fargo advisors sued the company for racial discrimination. The company settled the dispute in 2017, agreeing to pay $35.5 million to more than 300 members of the class action lawsuit and promising to improve its diversity initiatives.

Experts React

Reacting on Monday to the initial story by the New York Times on Thursday about Wells Fargo's allegedly fake job interviews, consultant Timothy Welsh, president, CEO and founder of Nexus Strategy, said in an email: "Wow  — that is a shocker, but not so much actually, because we are talking about Wells Fargo. They seem to have institutionalized ways to cut corners and wallpaper over issues."

Welsh added: "I have not heard of this anywhere else, so I don't think that it is pervasive industry-wide."

Compensation consultant Andrew Tasnady, managing partner of Tasnady Associates, told ThinkAdvisor in an email he "never heard of anything or complaints like this regarding Wells Fargo."

But "in general," he said, "I would not be surprised that some firms and/or departments within some firms, might just be halfheartedly interviewing candidates even after they have identified (often an internal) candidate for a position. Diversity goals around interviewing diverse slates of candidates, while a positive partial step, might lead to this type of behavior."

According to Tasnady, "a better way would be to establish goals and also rewards for achieving actual representation improvements in the ranks of each position," he said. "We've done that at a financial services firm starting at the top level of management. This highest management level representation is where diverse candidates will look first as to whether diversity goal statements are real or just statements."

The allegations against Wells Fargo are "similar to" what the National Football League has been accused of, Tasnady noted. Although the NFL and some other sports leagues "have diverse interviewing requirements," that hasn't "led to nearly the actual hiring levels expected of diverse candidates (for manager and senior positions)," he added.

Wells Fargo Stands by Diversity Efforts

Wells Fargo "believes its implementation of diverse candidate slates is a best practice and has contributed to meaningful increases in diverse hiring at Wells Fargo; the numbers show this to be the case," it said in a prepared statement on Thursday.

The firm "researched all the specific hiring practice allegations the New York Times reporter shared prior to the story's publication and could not corroborate these allegations as factual," it added.

"The company's new management team is committed to transparency and accountability," Wells Fargo said. "Given the seriousness of the allegations in the story that was published, it will continue its internal review."

Since 2020, when Wells Fargo "put in place guidelines requiring diverse candidate slates for the majority of jobs that pay more than $100,000 a year, we have seen significant improvements in diverse representation at the company," it said.

As examples, it said:

• In 2021, its overall U.S. external hiring volume grew 17% from 2020.
• Over the same time period in the U.S., external hiring of individuals from racially or ethnically diverse populations jumped by 27%.
• Also, between 2020 and 2021, female external hires in the U.S. increased 23%.

That trend is continuing this year, according to the company. In the first quarter of 2022 in the U.S., Wells Fargo has "seen double-digit external hiring increases across a number of racially and ethnically diverse segments compared with the first quarter of 2021," it said.

However, "we take the nature of the allegations in the story seriously and, as a company, we do not tolerate the type of conduct alleged. We will continue our internal review and if we find evidence of inappropriate behavior or shortcomings in our guidelines or their implementation, we will take decisive action."

(Pictured: Joe Bruno, president and managing director of Bruno and Associates)