Do Recruiters Verify the Employment of Candidates?

Recruiters provide a lot of different services for their clients . . . but do recruiters verify the employment of candidates, as well? Well, there is a question that must be asked before that question.

And of course, that question must also be answered, which is why we recently posted it in the Members’ Area. Follow the bouncing ball (you remember the bouncing ball, right?)::

Do your clients ask you to verify the employment of candidates?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters that selected each one:

• No, they do not ask. — 65.0%
• Some do ask, and I verify it myself. — 22.2%
• Some do ask, and somebody else in my firm verifies it. — 6.0%
• Some do ask, but I do not provide that service. — 6.8%

Recruiters verify . . . or do they?

Well over half of all clients (65%) do NOT ask their recruiters to verify the employment of candidates. That means, of course, that 35% of clients DO ask.

So, in those instances when clients do request that recruiters verify employment, what happens then? Nearly two-thirds of them verify it themselves, and when they don’t, they have somebody else in their firm verify it for them.

Another small segment of poll respondents (6.8%) indicated that their clients ask them to verify employment, but they do not provide that service.

As you can see, this is about preferences and service level offerings. What recruiters are willing to do and what they are not willing to do varies from firm to firm. This is especially the case with smaller recruiting agencies that consist of between one and three employees, and the majority of Top Echelon Network member firms fall into that category.

What about your recruiting firm? Does it verify employment if one of your clients ask you to do so? Do you perform the verification yourself, or do you have somebody else in the office do it?