(PatriotWise.com) — Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a report in which some female candidates claimed that the security firm hired to vet job applicants looking to work for billionaire Bill Gates’ company Gates Ventures asked highly inappropriate and sexually explicit questions, including if they ever had an affair, had nude photos of themselves on their devices, and what pornography they enjoy.
The sources told the Journal that during pre-employment screening, the security firm Concentric Advisors asked some of the women if they had ever “danced for dollars.” One candidate said she was asked if she ever suffered from a sexually-transmitted disease.
Whether these questions were only posed to women, however, is unclear since the Wall Street Journal did not interview any male applicants.
A spokeswoman for Gates Ventures told the Journal that she knew nothing about the type of questions asked during the vetting process since pre-employment screening is contracted out to Concentric Advisors, a company whose website bills itself as “family office security” for “high net-worth clients.”
Concentric Advisors, which is located in the same Kirkland, Washington office park as Gates Ventures, boasts of having several former FBI and CIA agents on its staff.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the firm’s vetting interviews were conducted in recent years and were likely designed to find information that might be used to blackmail or compromise individuals working closely with Bill Gates.
However, the Gates Ventures spokeswoman told the Journal that the explicit questions alleged would violate the agreement between Gates’ company and Concentric Advisors. She said that in its pre-employment screenings for men and women, Gates Ventures abides by industry standards, and all of its vendors are required to comply with federal and state laws.
The spokeswoman added that Gates Ventures has never received any information from either a vendor or a job candidate about inappropriate questions being asked during the background checks. She assured the Journal that a comprehensive review of employment records confirmed that no job offer has been “rescinded based on information of this nature.”
Concentric Advisors denied that it asks questions about medical or sexual histories as part of its pre-employment screening, however, a candidate can volunteer that kind of information. A spokesman for the company told the Journal that it does not make hiring recommendations, rather, its only function is to conduct security screenings.
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