Recruiter launches to support emerging businesses

Edgar Stewart directors Bruce Hydes, Craig Jackson and Alan Wallace. Picture: Contributed

Known as Talent, it claims to be Scotland’s first dedicated recruitment service for high-growth start-ups and SMEs, aimed at the food and drink, life science, engineering, technology and software sectors.

It is the first to benefit from Edgar Stewart’s £120,000 funding round, which kicked off last month and was set up to help early-stage businesses target growth via effective recruitment.

Edgar Stewart director Craig Jackson said: “There’s been a lot of noise about businesses struggling to compete in today’s candidate-led market but no one really came up with any solutions.

“Talented is different in a number of ways. It thinks differently, operates differently and is trying to change people’s perceptions about what recruitment is all about.”

Jackson told The Scotsman that the service is taking a new, more holistic approach to recruitment, to meet the particular needs of the new generation of entrepreneurial businesses who can often have limited time and resources.

He said the service can help with recruitment at a very early stage for a business, before it has even made the decision to hire.

Talent can also provide support across a whole business, give realistic advice and it launches after four months of planning with a roster of clients already under its belt, Jackson also explained.

“Recruitment often gets a bad reputation and, in many cases, it’s justifiable,” he said. “But with Talented we’re trying to turn that on its head.”

Edgar Stewart said it is inviting applications from other recruitment start-ups that would benefit from funding and support.

The company announced in August that it would be investing the £120,000, with each chosen start-up to receive up to £30,000 to establish their business.