Wells Fargo Employees Conducted “Fake Interviews” With Diverse Job Candidates, According To Fired Exec

Wells Fargo employees conducted “fake interviews” with diverse job candidates, The NY Times reports, with one former executive claiming he was fired after complaining about the practice, which Wells denied.

Seven current and former employees, including one former executive, told The Times that they were instructed to interview women and people of color for roles that had already been filled.

These efforts, they said, appeared to be a way to show a record of diversity efforts rather than actually hire diverse candidates. The current Wells Fargo employees also told The Times that the fake interviews had been conducted as recently as this year. 

Did someone speak up?

Wells Fargo Executive, Joe Bruno, told The New York Times that he complained to management about the staged interviews that he deemed inappropriate.

He alleges that his claims about the interviews being morally and ethically wrong were dismissed. As a further consequence, Bruno believes he was terminated due to speaking out against the practice.

But in a statement, a Wells Fargo spokesperson told Insider in a statement that the company investigated The Times’ claims and “could not corroborate the claims as factual.”

“At the same time, we take the nature of the allegations in the story seriously and, as a company, we do not tolerate the type of conduct alleged,” the spokesperson said.

“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.”

Is this the first time they’ve been in heat?

In 2013, Wells also faced a racial discrimination lawsuit, which it later settled, and in August 2020, Wells agreed to pay roughly $8 million in back wages after the Department of Labor claimed the bank has discriminated against Black job applicants.