Recruitment agencies choosing ‘vetting partners’ to run background checks on potential candidates could become a big trend in the industry.

That’s the claim of Alexandra Kelly, who founded London-based vetting firm Powerchex earlier this year.

Powerchex has already struck up a relationship with recruitment outsourcing firm PROconsulting and recruitment and psychometrics company SHL.

Many clients fail to realise recruitment agencies don’t usually vet candidates and usually only half check references, according to Kelly.

Powerchex provides services including verification of academic qualifications and employment over the last 10 years.

It also checks claims made by candidates on CVs against reports by line managers.

US headhunters Spencer Stuart and Korn/Ferry know from experience the backlash that can follow when a recommended candidate turns out to have a questionable past. Hired in 1996 by US electrical appliances manufacturer Sunbeam on the advice of headhunters, ‘Chainsaw’ Al Dunlap was fired two years later because of accounting irregularities that led the company into bankruptcy protection.

Dunlap was ultimately banned from directing a public company by US financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission and severely fined.

Once the scandal broke, the headhunters who had pinpointed him for Sunbeam’s chairmanship and a prior high-level role at Scott Paper came under fire for not unearthing similar irregularities in his career years before.

But hiring dishonest people in lower-level jobs can be just as disastrous, said PROconsulting director Mark Owen-Ward.

“The backgrounds of employees with access to sensitive information must be rigorously checked to ensure they cannot misuse it,” he said.

“You definitely don’t want people looking at personal information about customers if you have not even referenced them.”