In your role as a recruitment professional, it isn’t only the success of your career which depends on your ability to match talented candidates to the jobs and companies which suit them best – it’s theirs too. When you’re employed by a company to bolster its ranks, it’s important to ensure that your role is performed with the utmost consideration and understanding of how your recommended candidate would fare.
When hired by a firm to find them suitable candidates for new roles being created, it’s your advice and expertise as a recruitment consultant which they seek. If you work in recruitment then the risks are high for making an error in judgement which could potentially cost you your livelihood. Professional indemnity insurance covers you in the event of a professional mistake that costs another company time and money spent rectifying any strategic or operational mistakes, which could have been caused by the ill-fitting employee which you hand-picked.
Assessing an interviewee’s skills for the role is one thing, but this article also stresses the need for someone who makes a ‘cultural fit’. 82% of firms say that they find assessing their cultural fit within the company to be ‘essential’ to recruitment. If you fail to follow instructions given by an employer in assessing someone’s full suitability for the role, then this could be construed as a failure to give the proper guidance and advice in assisting the firm’s search.
By taking out professional indemnity insurance, you would be protected against any loss made on a claim by a client, removing the financial and reputational embarrassment of the situation. Firms in many lines of work won’t even consider working with someone who does not hold insurance so it’s important to get protection for the sake of having regular business.
Recruitment consultant insurance stretches to more than this though; when dealing with a client at their or your office, you will need to be covered in the ways of public and product liability, to protect against possible damage or injury caused on and off the premises, as well as any equipment being stolen, damaged or lost. This is a particularly sensitive matter with recruitment professionals due to the personal information they are sent by way of e-mails and application forms.
There are many other reasons why a recruitment consultant should consider having professional indemnity insurance – from the safety of their office, to the employer’s liability protecting against illness or injury to the workforce – but when dealing with people who may take up new jobs in other businesses, it’s advised that you should keep those businesses happy by having professional indemnity insurance.