National agencies looking to set up in Scotland could face challenges they might not encounter south of the border, or so was the conclusion of Recruiter’s roundtable of senior recruitment executives held in Edinburgh last month.

Delegates from national agencies reported that on entering the recruitment market in Scotland they had come across more competition from established local agencies than they had anticipated.

Neil Turnbull, regional director of Kelly Services, said: "I wish the Kelly brand turned heads here as much as it does elsewhere. The biggest in any city are often the independents, and the cities in Scotland are no exception."

Ian MacLeod, who heads up the Scottish branch of search firm Odgers Ray and Berndtson, also said that, although some surveys rank Odgers as the second biggest search firm in the UK, its profile in Scotland was nowhere near as high.

Challenges aside, however, the delegates agreed that, since the Scottish market was much smaller than the rest of the UK, it was more dependent on building long-term client relationships – and therefore more rewarding – than they perceived it to be elsewhere.

Highlights of the Recruiter roundtable will appear in our next issue, out 18 February.