A furore surrounding the embellished resume of one of New Zealand's top Defence executives illustrates the risks for agencies and clients when recruitment services are unbundled, without the clear delineation of responsibilities.
The recruitment company at the centre of the controversy, Momentum, has strongly rejected the findings of a new Defence report which stated that Momentum was chiefly to blame for a shortfall in the reference checking of a senior executive who embellished his resume and made a series of wild claims during his time with Defence.
Momentum was contracted by the NZDF to recruit a new director of the Defence Technology Agency in 2004, which led to the appointment of Stephen Wilce.
Although the qualifications listed in Wilce's resume were accurate, parts of his work history were misleading or exaggerated, and he omitted to mention that he had been fired from a recent job.
During the course of his five years with the agency, Wilce told colleagues that he had been a member of the Welsh rugby union team, a member of the British Olympic bobsled team, was on an IRA "death list", had served in the British spy agencies MI5 and MI6, and had an honorary PhD in astronomy from Cambridge University.
In some cases there was a grain of truth to the claims, but most were entirely fabricated. Over time there was was growing dissatisfaction with his leadership among DTA staff, and Wilce was sacked by the NZDF in September after his history of fantastic claims came to light in the media.
In a report issued last week, the Defence Court of Inquiry found that although Momentum had carried out "basic" reference checks on Wilce, the checks didn't meet the standards "required by its contract with the Crown", given the senior nature of the role.
The report also acknowledged that the Defence team assembled to oversee the recruitment process did not have enough HR expertise, the process was conducted with "undue haste", and the Defence team had placed "an undesirably high level of reliance on Momentum carrying out the proper checks".
Defence varied the contract terms: Momentum
Momentum managing director Bede Ashby told Shortlist that the Defence Force's assertion that the ultimate responsibility for proper reference checking rested with Momentum was "completely incorrect".
Although the agency's contract with the NZDF stated that Momentum would undertake "detailed reference checks", early on in the process the Defence team said they would instead undertake this themselves.
Following this verbal variation to the contract - which he said was common in recruitment assignments - Momentum had documented the changes in writing and sent them to Defence.
Momentum still provided Defence with some references for Wilce, he said, but didn't do the comprehensive checking that it would otherwise have carried out.
"If Momentum had been asked to carry out the full reference checks [Wilce's] claims about his performance in previous jobs would have been tested more rigorously."
Overlap with the client if necessary
Ashby said the key lesson for recruiters from the saga was not to unbundle the recruitment process, even if the client requested it.
If the employer insisted on doing parts of the process themselves, it was in the recruiter's best interests to double up and still carry out those parts.
"Always allow the client to exercise their prerogative. And if you must do that in conjunction with the client, then so be it."
