Imagine this.

A new customer introduces you and your firm to an opportunity where, if you successfully fill their most challenging requirement, it will open up numerous doors to other opportunities within their organization. If you land the placement, you will regarded as a “Staffing Firm above all Staffing Firms” – one that not only found their hardest to find resource but also one that uniquely separated themselves from the packs of other staffing vendors that have struck out on this same requirement - one firm after another.

You find the ideal candidate. Local to the assignment, missed by all other staffing firms mining for the same need, and with a rate that falls into the ever-restrictive rate ranges sadly becoming standard issue in the industry.

After your recruiter performs general due diligence, confirming work experience and the like, you present the candidate to the customer who then proceeds to interview the candidate and BOOM!

The customer likes him and is interested in proceeding to the on-boarding process to get the candidate on staff ASAP. What a Hero your firm has become. You have found the missing piece the customer has been seeking for so long. Your firm is truly a “Staffing Firm above all Staffing Firms”.

Is this too good to be true?

Well, if you are not careful, it can be.

As Sales and Recruiting professionals, it is not only essential, it is imperative to be sure to check and double check every candidate you consider to make sure what you see is what you are going to get. In this economy as we are all struggling to get new business, it’s easy to “forget” the important things. Don’t think cutting corners or relaxing processes is something people will not notice. Failure to perform standard background checks, reference checks, and probe employment holes and gaps in a candidate’s resume are all things that, in the excitement of wanting to submit the right candidate and present them to a customer, are mistakes that can lump you and your firm into the same boat as all the other staffing firms who are more interested in getting a quick sale instead of doing business the right way.

It’s not wrong to call out a candidate whose resume looks too good to be true, just like it’s not wrong for a recruiter to question a Sales Manager over a requirement missing recruiting details. Don’t fail to do the little things right with any deal you undertake. Handle each new deal as if it were your first.

And remember the old adage a wise staffing sage taught me 15 years ago: “It’s hard to land new customers. It’s very easy to lose them.”

Are you not doing the little things that could be costing you hires or more, future business? Do you know what you are representing to your customers?