‘Wells Fargo Announces Pause of Policy That Led to Fake Job Interviews’

Emily Flitter with The New York Times: “Wells Fargo is temporarily suspending a hiring policy that led some managers to conduct sham interviews of nonwhite and female candidates following a report by The New York Times highlighting the practice, the bank’s chief executive, Charles W. Scharf, told employees in a letter on Monday. Instituted in 2020, the bank’s ‘diverse slate’ policy stipulated that at least half the candidates interviewed for open positions paying $100,000 or more in annual salary needed to be ‘diverse’ — a catchall term for racial minorities, women and members of other disadvantaged groups.” …

“The Times reported (recently) that a former employee in the bank’s wealth management business had complained that he was being forced by his bosses to interview people for jobs that had already been promised to others, just to meet the ‘diverse slate’ requirement.”

Wells Fargo has a history of diversity issues. You may recall that in 2020, Scharf apologized after blaming the bank’s lack of diversity on “a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.”