Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets.

Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance via more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking. It also has offices in 42 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy.

With approximately 269,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the U.S. Wells Fargo was ranked 27th on Fortune’s 2016 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Its vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.

Jose Garcia is senior vice president and manager, diversity talent acquisition strategy for Wells Fargo. He joined the financial firm in July 2014. Garcia is responsible for the development and delivery of innovative, integrated diversity talent acquisition strategies, programs and processes. In addition, he’s responsible for the overall diversity human capital strategy and oversight of HR diversity programs for Wells Fargo.

In his previous role at Nucor Corporation, Garcia served as manager of talent and recruiting, and was responsible for campus, military and experienced talent recruitment. He also managed Nucor’s partnerships with universities and external organizations focused on talent and professional development.

Before joining Nucor Garcia worked at Bank of America for 27 years and held several leadership positions in diversity and inclusion, recruitment, operations, capital markets, finance, accounting and internal audit.

Garcia serves on the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Charlotte Advisory Council and is a member of PRIMER, a network of Latino executives. He’s a founding director of the Charlotte Chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), and has served on the ALPFA corporate advisory board, as well as the ALPFA national board. 

Garcia graduated magna cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. During his career he’s attained multiple professional certifications including: Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Chartered Bank Auditor (CBA) and Certified Financial Services Auditor (CFSA). He’s also a Six Sigma Black Belt.

 

Hispanic Career World

How is diversity part of Wells Fargo’s culture?

 

Garcia

Diversity and inclusion are one of our primary values and are a business imperative. We know our work is made better by team members who bring diversity of thought, ideas and experience to their roles - enabling us to meet the changing needs of our customers, team members and communities we serve around the world.

We’re committed to building and sustaining an inclusive and supportive culture where all people feel valued and respected for whom they are, and are empowered to contribute and succeed. We take these responsibilities very seriously and are always working to integrate diversity and inclusion into everything we do. Today we employ a diverse workforce of approximately 269,000 team members.

We have more than 5,185 team members participating in our team member networks (TMNs) based on shared backgrounds or interests. We currently have 55 active TMN chapters, which are open to all team members, provide opportunities for professional and leadership development, mentoring and community involvement. They also help recruit new team members who share backgrounds, experiences or other common affinities.

Our diverse leader programs provide a unique opportunity for a tailored learning environment focused on professional and leadership development. Participants learn and share cultural differences and similarities within the Wells Fargo business culture. They practice and model the leadership skills necessary for success in a diverse business environment; gain a working knowledge of leadership styles and skills; become conscious of what they already do well; and raise their awareness of the area in which there are opportunities for personal development.

We encourage our team members to get actively involved in their communities, and offer a wide range of programs to support community engagement and volunteerism. In fact, eligible full-time team members receive two days of paid time off each year for volunteering. More than 40,000 team members actively participate in one of Wells Fargo’s 130 volunteer chapters in 43 states and 10 countries.

Our key diversity benchmarks include the following:

• Women made up 56 percent of our global workforce.

• Forty one percent of our U.S. workforce is ethnically/racially diverse.

• We employ more than 8,300 team members who self-identify as veterans.

We also received a perfect score on both the 100 Corporate Equality Index for the Human Rights Campaign and the 100 Disability Equality Index Best Places to Work. And we were also listed as the eighth best company for Latinas by LATINA Style, and ranked fourth as a top company for diversity and 12th as a top company for LGBT by DiversityInc.

 

Hispanic Career World

How does Wells Fargo recruit and attract a diverse workforce?

 

Garcia

We aspire to hire the best talent. We also aspire to increase our diverse representation because a workplace that leverages our commonalities and differences, and reflects the diversity of the customers we serve, is a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Each year we process nearly 3 million applications and fill approximately 100,000 positions. When seeking and sourcing top talent for the company, we create targeted outreach programs for key segments, including U.S. veterans and other diverse talent (e.g., Hispanic). We also partner with national external diversity organizations to attract diverse talent by participating in national conferences and career fairs (including virtual career fairs). In addition, the company participates in the diversity organizations’ chapter-level events across the U.S.

Professional organizations include:

• RecruitMilitary.com Veteran Opportunity Expos across the U.S.

• MBA Veterans Career Conference.

• Veteran Recruiting, Virtual Career Fairs.

• Careers & the disABLED Magazine Career Expos for People with Disabilities and Wounded Warriors.

• Prospanica Conference and Career Expo.

• NBMBAA, National Black MBA Association Conference & Exposition.

• ROMBA, The Reaching Out LGBT MBA & Business Graduate Conference.

• ALPFA, Association of Latino Professionals for America.

• NABA, National Association of Black Accountants.

• Ascend, Pan-Asian organization for business professionals in North America.

Wells Fargo posts all externally open positions to DirectEmployer JobCentral. The JobCentral National Labor Exchange (NLx) is a service of DirectEmployers Association (DEA), a non-profit consortium of leading U.S. corporations, in alliance with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA). The Association’s purpose is to develop and manage the JobCentral National Labor Exchange, and related internet systems and software, to help employers increase labor market efficiency and reduce recruiting costs.

 

Hispanic Career World

What qualities and skills do you seek in a new hire?

 

Garcia

It’s important to make sure that the individual has the skills and capabilities to be successful in the role. In some cases that can be determined based on their experience or expertise, but it can also manifest itself in a demonstrated ability to learn and grow.

We’re very collaborative and team-oriented here at Wells Fargo, so we look for evidence of those behaviors when making a new hire. These can be illustrated via work experience, volunteer activities or other interests a person may have. For me the importance is on a person’s ability to share those examples in a meaningful way.

Finally, it’s key to know that someone is truly interested in working for Wells Fargo. I very much appreciate it when a candidate has taken the time to understand our company, our culture and the nature of the role for which he or she is applying, and comes prepared with insightful questions that show their interest.

Ultimately the goal is to build a dynamic, diverse team that leverages the skills and talents of each team member for the benefit of our customers.

 

Hispanic Career World

What’s your best career advice?

 

Garcia

One of the best pieces of advice I can give someone is to be flexible. In my experience professional success is not a linear trajectory. Successful careers often take many twists and turns, so while it’s important to have a set of goals in mind, it’s equally important to be open to new opportunities that present themselves.

A crucial element in helping to make those decisions and choices is to surround yourself with people who can give you good counsel - mentors, sponsors and advisers. If you combine that with strong performance in any job you undertake, then there’s no end to what you can accomplish.

 

Hispanic Career World

How would you describe Wells Fargo’s culture? Why is it a great place to work?

 

Garcia

Wells Fargo has worked hard to build a culture of caring. Our culture is the result of the work of those who came before us during our 163-year history. We’re adding to the history of our culture every day - with every interaction with our customers and each other.

We’re all working together to make a difference in the lives of our customers, communities and each other. Caring is core to who we are. We take the time to listen and genuinely understand, and if there’s a better way, then we’ll work hard to find it.

 

Hispanic Career World

What types of jobs are you seeking to fill?

 

Garcia

One of the wonderful things about Wells Fargo is that we have an amazingly diverse portfolio of opportunity across our four main lines of business - our retail bank, our consumer lending business, wealth and investment management, and our investment banking, commercial banking and capital markets business.

We’re a financial services company, so we have opportunities for tellers, personal bankers, underwriters, appraisers, salespeople, customer service representatives, credit professionals, financial advisors, private bankers and salespeople. We also have the infrastructure to support these businesses, which means we need people in finance, accounting, marketing, communications, human resources, technology and operations.

At any given time, we have more than 5,000 different opportunities across Wells Fargo, which makes this an exciting and wonderful place to be. 

 

Hispanic Career World

Where can readers view Wells Fargo job opportunities and apply online? How can they connect via social media?

 

Garcia

Job seekers can visit our careers page on wellsfargo.com/careers to search for jobs. They can connect with the company via a variety of social media channels, too, including Twitter: @WellsFargoJobs, twitter.com/wellsfargojobs, Facebook, @wellsfargo, facebook.com/wellsfargo, and YouTube, Wells Fargo, youtube.com/user/wellsfargo.