New firm aims to break into headhunting

A FORMER snooker professional turned recruitment specialist will today launch a headhunting firm amid signs that the market is picking up and employees are lowering their salary demands.

Ewan Hunter, who shared the baize with a number of the world's top players during the late 1990s, has teamed up with his wife Heather, a former textiles designer, to create HunterSearch, a company based in the west end of Edinburgh.

Hunter, who remains an accredited World Snooker coach, has spent 14 years in the recruitment industry, much of it running a franchise as part of MRI Network, one of the world's largest executive search organisations. He has latterly worked for Carlyle Associates in Edinburgh but believes the time is right to branch out on his own.

"The economy is still challenging but I think now is the time to be helping companies to prepare for the recovery," he said. "Businesses are hiring again and there are signs that people are willing to move jobs after a long period of staying put.

"Also, greed is being taken out of the equation. It is lowering people's expectations."

Hunter acknowledged that the sector is crowded but believes his experience and intention to work closely with clients in order to understand their company's culture will give him an opening.

HunterSearch will draw on the services of a team of about ten specialists, either working for themselves or with other agencies that Hunter intends to develop as partners. Hunter also chairs Recruitwork, a student-run company at Strathclyde University,

Other recruitment agencies share Hunter's view that the hiring market is picking up.

John Denholm, of Denholm Associates in Edinburgh, said that after a difficult two years there are signs of job activity in financial services and food and drink.