Are search firms responsible to check clients' claimed degrees?

Article in the Asian Wall Street Journal (Aug 1 2001) on the responsibility of executive search firms to verify degrees claimed.

It describes (among others) the case of a major search firm paid $35,000 by a large law firm, which supplied a candidate claiming a Bachelor's in computer science and a nearly-completed MBA.

Said person was hired, embezzled over $2 million, and turned out to have no degrees.

The CEO of the search firm, Executive Direction, said it wasn't their problem. "Unfortunately [she] told a lie to us about her educational background...but [we] never promised to corroborate candidates' college degrees independently. That is not part of our offering of service."

Does the law firm have a valid claim against the search firm? Well, the Journal article also reports a comparable case where another large search firm (Robert Half) failed to discover that a client had pleaded guilty only two months earlier to stealing $192,000 from her previous employer. When she stole again from her new employer, they sued Half, but the judge dismissed the case, saying that "Half is in the talent business, and not the criminal investigation business."

As Nero Wolfe says, "Pfui."

 

JB and all,
a person can be an "IVY LEAGER"say Havard or Yale, and still be a Criminal.

Timmy.

 

I think the issue here is how did the business contract between the two parties read? Considering that the agency who provides the service usually draws up the contract I would imagine (opinion only) that the contract did not include verification services...

Bruce

 

The contract does not have to be explicit on every actionable point. There is an implied warranty of merchantability here, but I do not know if it can be enforced. The search firm is responsible for delivering candidates that meet a certain set of criteria. This is the same as selling a lawn mower with a defective part, a part that caused injury. The merchant didn't know the part was faulty (and, it could be reasonably expected, some parts in each run will be faulty and not detected).

I believe the firm is negligent and, thus, in breach of its contract. It may even be grossly negligent, which might also require the payment of penalties.

Rich Douglas, who has had very little legal education. (Just so you know.)

 

I think the two cases in John's original message are significantly different. In the first, I would imagine that the search firm inaccurately presented the candidate as a person with BS and nearly-completed MBA. But in the second case (where person turned out to have a conviction for embezzlement), I doubt whether the search firm made any claims at all about whether candidate lacked a criminal record.

 

John,

It's the employers responsibility to ensure the package of goods, I'm talking about the candidates references. An employer should not give up that right, and if it does, it still has the liability.

Think of a search firm as a used car sales person, I've been in HR since 1985, a big fan of yours - by the way.

I just had a top notch search firm send me a person, they said he had a college degree, the resume also had it on at the very top of the resume in bold print - BS ........, after about 5 minutes into the interview I found that we was still working on it, ????

About a year ago I had a person for a sr. level accounting position, he had years of related industry experience, on the resume it stated a AS in Computer Science 1972, I graduated from HS in 1980 and did not have much interaction with a computer, I took (1) class in HS, so I asked him to fax a copy of his A.S. degree. - We'll to make a long story short, he did not get the job.

If he just would have said, I DON'T HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE - we would of hired him at 70K range with a 25% bonus potential.

 

The really scary/sad thing is how easy it would have been to verify the degrees, or lack thereof. I used to do background investigations on recruit candidates, and a simple phone call to the school was usually all that was necessary to verify a degree. Getting transcripts required a signed waiver form.

Bruce

 

Originally handcrafted by Rich Douglas:
I believe the firm is negligent

Which is what John's slant is as well on this story. (A shocking coincidence!)

Rich Douglas, who has had very little legal education.

With more posts on this newsgroup than Chip and John combined, I can't imagine where you would find the time, Rich.

I (having spent my time wisely watching "People's Court") would take a long look at the contract before commenting on the validity of legal action. For all we know, there could be verbage therein that protects the search firm and nullifies a potential "implied warranty".

To me, it sounds a little like the law firm is looking for a scapegoat. They put someone in a position to embezzle TWO MILLION DOLLARS without checking into said person's background themselves? Hmmm...

-Rabert Shapiro