The majority of professional recruitment services are proficient, honest and reliable however bad experiences are still worryingly common and many businesses have had their fingers burnt. When businesses employ a recruitment company there is a lot at stake and business-owners often feel rightly wary about parting with their money. So what can be done to find out whether you should trust a company?

Jo Parker is co-founder of Certain Shops (www.certainshops.com), a free-to-use service that helps people find the business services they need. She says:

"References are a great way of finding out about a company's past performance, but look beyond the testimonials on a company's marketing materials. All companies publicise their success stories; so how do you find out if they've got any skeletons in their closet? For a start you can do your own research into a company; contacting previous customers and asking them about their experiences, or you can look for independent customer feedback which is now more freely available via the internet.

At Certain Shops potential customers can look at the feedback others have left about the business services listed to get independent opinions. Few of us would employ a member of staff without checking out their references so it seems bizarre that we don't always collect references about professional services businesses."