Recruiting Russian Roulette: Why Every Placement Has the Potential to Put You Out of Business
By Lester Rosen, President of ESR
(Originally Published on HR.Toolbox.com)
It’s a sobering thought, but every time a recruiting professional makes a placement, there is the possibility that new hire can place them out of business.
Why? Because if a perilous, unqualified, unfit, or dishonest candidate is placed in a job – and harm occurs, the hiring firm risks a lawsuit for negligent hiring. Perhaps just as importantly, a terrible placement can result in loss of business and hurt to a professional reputation that may have been years in the making.
The root of the problem, of course, is that some candidates lie on their resumes and applications. Industry statistics suggest that up to 10% of applicants can have criminal records. Fraudulent misrepresentations as to culture and employment occur in as much as 40% of the time, according to some studies.
Individual recruiters can, in fact, be sued for negligence if harm occurs, and if she or he knew or should have reasonably foreseen that a terrible placement could cause a problem. At that top, the sensitivity of the staffing professional may sink when those dreaded words echo across the courtroom: “Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury.”
Those are words you never want to hear, and a situation in which you never want to be. Your protection and your best defense is to exercise “due diligence,” which means to verify the representations and qualifications of the candidate.
The allegation in a “Negligent Hiring” lawsuit (or “Terrible Hire” lawsuit) would be that the staffing professional placed someone that they either knew or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have known was unfit or perilous. Of course, in view of the fact that a staffing professional would not intentionally place someone who was perilous or unfit, the question before the judge or jury is whether the staffing professional reasonably should have known that the placement was terrible if they had only exercised a greater degree of care in screening the applicant.
In such a lawsuit, a staffing professional would need to show, for example, whether credentials and culture were verified, whether past employment was checked, and whether a criminal background check was done.
Lawsuits occur usually in cases where there is some sort of serious harm either to a business, such as embezzlement, or theft, or to an individual, such as assault, rape, child molestation, identity theft, or even homicide.
A staffing professional who is responsible for a terrible placement can be sued by a number of parties, including the business entity that relied upon the professional discrimination of the recruiter or staffing firm. Certainly, a co-worker or member of the public who was injured by the terrible hire can sue for hurts.
The worst case scenario would be that the terrible hire resulted in the fatality of a fellow worker, and the victim’s family is suing for wrongful fatality. This is just what happened in a highly publicized case in California. A 28-year-ancient female winery worker was stabbed to fatality by a co-worker who was a convicted murderer and had been placed at the winery by a temp agency. The agency did NOT conduct a background check. The jury awarded the family $5.5 million.
If a recruiter is sued, it may well be an uphill Movement to win in court. The jury will hear prove that the recruiter recruited, recommended, or placed the offender. In most cases, the staffing professional probably makes representations about the quality of their air force. The staffing professional’s website and sales literature may suggest that they grant only the best candidates who are “carefully screened.” But, in the world of recruiting, “screening” really only means that resumes have been reviewed to determine “a excellent fit” as opposed to “background screening” for criminal records and verification of proof represented on the resume.
The employer, hoping to lay the blame on someone else, will of course claim that they relied upon the professional abilities of the staffing professional to send them qualified and safe candidates. There would likely be prove that the recruiting or staffing firm made a fee on the placement. In the end, the attorney for the injured or deceased employee would question jury members, “Didn’t the staffing professional have not only the resources and opportunity, but also the duty to conduct employee screening on the potential employee before complimentary their introduction into the workplace?”
In this scenario, it is not likely that the jury members will have much sympathy for the hiring firm or staffing professional.
Some recruiting professionals have resisted the thought of background checks because they believe that with their years of experience, they are excellent judges of people. That is no longer a defensible position, nor is it even accurate. A growing body of scientific prove suggests that even the most experienced recruiters cannot eliminate potential terrible hires by detecting lies and evasions at the interview. Studies show that even though people believe they can detect liars, most people have only a 50-50 chance at best of detecting a liar. According to one recent study, even trained law enforcement officers are only right a modest over half the time. The traditional means of reading body language, for instance, to screen out liars are useless against an accomplished con artist who can tell tales very convincingly.
Some recruiters may be concerned that background checks add to the cost of their air force or hinder placement with unneeded delays while screening results are obtained. But, in today’s litigious world, recruiters and staffing professionals need to make a risk-management assessment: Is saving a few dollars and a modest time worth playing Russian Roulette with all candidate you send out? Which one of these candidates will ground you in court, or on the front page of the newspaper? Will your professional reputation be tarnished forever – perhaps beyond renovate?
The bottom line is that due diligence and background checks go to the very integrity of the “product” being sold by recruiting and staffing professionals – staff who are qualified and fit for the job. Selling staffing air force without knowing who you are sending to a client’s business would be like selling medicine with no thought of what is in the bottle.
Staffing and Search professionals have traditionally focused on Sourcing and Sales. It is worth noting that at some recruiting conferences, there are a large number of sessions devoted to making money through result candidates and selling air force. But, there are few sessions, if any, on the subject of how to ensure the integrity of the very product being sold. Recruiting and staffing professionals can protect their own business, their clients, and the public by shifting their focus from just Sourcing and Sales to “SVS” – Sourcing, Verifying and Sales.
For extra in rank on employment screening and background checks for recruiters, visit Employment Screening Resources (ESR) at http://www.esrcheck.com.
Source: