Wells Fargo allegedly conducted fake interviews with Black female candidates to boost diversity numbers

According to a group of former and current employees, Wells Fargo encouraged them to conduct interviews with Black female candidates for jobs that were already filled in an effort to boost the company’s diversity hiring statistics.

Former employee Joe Bruno told the New York Times he was fired from Wells Fargo last Summer after he confronted management about the bogus interviews. Wells Fargo has denied the claim, saying Bruno was fired for retaliating against another employee, with no further details provided.

A Wells Fargo spokesman denied the allegations made in the NYT article, saying “To the extent that individual employees are engaging in the behavior as described by the New York Times, we do not tolerate it.”

In 2013, a group of Black financial advisors filed a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo for discriminating against Black customers. The lawsuit accused Wells Fargo of engaging “in race discrimination in refusing to renew and extend commercial lines of credit and loans.”

After the lawsuit was filed, the CEO of Wells Fargo began requiring one candidate who was a person of color or one female candidate for every open position, even if they did not get the job, though the policy only applied to positions that paid over $100,000.

Wells Fargo spokesperson Rachelle Burton says Wells Fargo has no reason to conduct fake interviews, and claims 81 percent of new Wells Fargo hires in 2021 were not white males. While the bank continues to deny the allegations of fake interviews, current employees say they have heard of the faux interviews happening as recently as the past year. 

Wells Fargo recently recovered from a $4.5 million federal fine for fraudulent accounts after bank employees opened accounts without customers’ knowledge in order to reach sales goals.