Pros
Wells Fargo is a giant with vast resources and many well implemented stragtegies and businesses. There are also a great number of talanted and smart people who work for wells fargo, unfortunatley none in retail banking. Wells Fargo's private bank, commercial banking, WF investment and other specialized business units stand out in the banking industry and truly do add value to their clients. At the least, you will be able to get some experience, perhaps a professional license which you can use to find a job somewhere else, or get a job outside of WF retail. Benefits and pay are average. Although recruiters will try to dress them up to make it seem like you are getting more, but when it comes down to it benefits and pay are just average compared to other companies in the same industry.
Cons
First of all let me state that I work for Wells Fargo Retail, and that when I list all the negative aspects at working for Wells Fargo they mainly pertain to retail banking and Wells Fargo Financial. The worst thing about working at Wells Fargo is the complete lack of ethics, which is a detriment to customers and the organization it's self. Unrealisticly high sales goals, combined with constant threats from branch and district managers force bankers to manipulate customers, falsificate documents and violate customer rights and privacy just to feel like they can avoid being fired for underperformance. Altough branch and District Managers are well aware of all the unethical sales practices they look the other way and passivley encourage this behavior by promoting bankers based mostly on sales perforamce, regardless of how it was attained. When a banker is fired for sales manipulation, the unethical sales are still honored towards meeting the branch manager and district manager's goals, which means that managment does only benefits and activley seeks to maintiain a staff with no sales ethics. As a result, often times Wells Fargo customers get pushed or manipulated into products and services which they do not need, and end up paying uneccessary fees or even having their credit history negativley impacted. Also, Wells Fargo the company looses out because eventually customers loose faith in the company and they sacrifice quality relationships for a large quantity of accounts. The second negative aspect to working at Wells Fargo is the lack of career development and opportunity for promotion. Years ago, this was not the case, however these days managment and other higher level positions in Orange County are given only to friends, family and top producers who often lack the matiruity, experience and business sense for the resposnibilites which they are given. It is not uncommon that relatives of executives will get placed in prime locations or promoted extremley quickly when compared to people with more experience and skill. District managers, sales directors, market presidents and so on, surround themselves and promote only people who never question thier ideas or tactics. Consequently, when a new initiative or sales process is issued from the corporate office, nobody has the courage to point out that it may be redundant, inefficient or ineffective out of fear of being branded as a "non-believer" or a non-team player. The third major drawback of working for Wells Fargo is staffing. To get a job as a banker there is only one requirement: you must we willing to do anything to exceed the sales goals, (including forcing your friends and family to sign up for products and services they do not need). Branches are very overstaffed on the sales side and understaffed on the service side, which makes for some interesting work enviorments. Also, Wells Fargo does not put any stock in education or personal characteristics, such as professionalism, intelligence, etc. It seems like more and more new bankers istead of being college graduates are past cell phone sales reps and mortgage industry drop outs. It is a disservice to clients to have an employee give advice about personal finaces who does not even understand the concept of time value of money, or even worse sell investment which they do not understand.