Chris Logue (Director, Eden Scott)
Interviewed by Colin Cardwell © s1jobs
Originally published: 16.06.2007
Chris Logue's attitude to the fiercely competitive world of recruitment consultancy is simple and pithy: "If you can't be a player, don't bother."
In this business, he points out, the barriers to entry are minimal: if you have a phone and a laptop there's nothing to stop someone claiming to be a recruitment consultant. "But in the end, you are paid by results."
Edinburgh-based recruitment consultancy Eden Scott was set up in 2003 by industry veterans Logue, Guy Martin and Michelle Lownie. Last year it dealt with 300 companies, and generated a turnover of £4.4m.
All had worked at established recruitment consultancy Melville Craig, which was sold in 2001 to the New York-based US giant TMP. Melville Craig, says Logue, was a strong brand with a £50m turnover and though the trio agreed initially to stay for two years, the transition to working for a multinational "proved difficult" and they left after 12 months with a vision to form a new company.
With Eden Scott they arrived in a busy and rapidly changing marketplace - first in Edinburgh's St Colme St, then Ainslie Place and then in 2005, based on consistent growth, with a move to the Georgian elegance of 26 St Andrew Square.
Key to Eden Scott's approach, Logue claims, is that "it goes the extra mile with the clients". Also, he says, the candidates count. "We don't get involved in commodity recruitment. We want to be involved in relationship-based partnerships."
In the language of a marketplace that is (not uniquely) often blurred with industry catchphrases and vague promises of "solutions" he stresses individual values. "We have to regard our candidates as more than a commodity," says Logue. "And we must be both realistic and honest."
Conceding that that the perception of recruitment consultancy is not always on the same level as other professional advisers he wants to "develop the same type of relationship as companies and individuals have with their lawyers and accountants."
One goal in a profession with high staff turnover was to subvert that trend and it appears to have worked. The company has just appointed its 50th employee and opened a Glasgow office with 3.5 thousand square feet of floor space and nine staff. "You need a presence in Glasgow, to show you are serious about the market in the west," says Logue.
After the growth, Eden Scott is now looking at a period of consolidation. "We need to integrate the new people. The initial core staff were characterised by years of experience in the business." Now, Logue says, the company is confident enough to take on some young graduates into the mix.
Like his colleagues and competitors, Logue admits that there is a huge shortage of good recruitment consultants. "When bringing people in, we kiss a lot of frogs we only use one out of every seven or eight people we meet."
And those who pass the frog test are, Logue thinks, from reassuringly diverse backgrounds that reflect the diverse skill sets needed. "We're looking less at specific, tailored qualifications and more at a customer services attitude."
He places the company as dealing mainly in "mid market professional services with the salary of most candidates in the £20,000 to £70,000 range."
"In the candidate-led sector, financial services, construction, accountancy and the legal profession are areas where there are relatively few good candidates and this is where we prove our worth by being a bit more inventive," says Logue.
Overseas business is lucrative and challenging. The company recently recruited three people from Singapore for the semiconductor industry and one of the most rewarding placements, Logue says, was filling a job in New York for a whisky company.
He sees the biggest shift in the business as the migrating of advertising from paper-based media to the Internet and says: "We have thoroughly embraced that mode".
The next push for growth will be trebling the company's presence in Glasgow and increasingly focusing on the public sector. "We also want to provide a range of assessment centre services, says Logue.
"If the economy does well, we'll do well. Confidence, we feel, is extremely high at the moment." He is confident enough to predict that in ten years Eden Scott could double its staff and be generating a £10m turnover.
