Edgar Stewart Selection (ESS) has appointed Scottish consultancy Lynda Hamilton Communications to manage PR and marketing activity across its three Edinburgh-based recruitment brands.
The professional services recruitment firm has awarded the five-figure contract to oversee external communications for Edgar Stewart and its two spin-out brands, Talented and Focus, to the Fife-based specialist after seeing operations grow by 35% and expanding its Edinburgh team.
Talented and Focus, which are dedicated recruitment services for Scotland’s vibrant high-growth start-up and SME community and burgeoning food and drink sector respectively, both launched in the last six months and are the first beneficiaries of ESS’s pledged £120k investment in niche recruitment start-ups.
They are both based at the company’s start-up hub and business incubator in Stockbridge, to which ESS relocated from its former city centre base in 2015 to embrace a more laid-back working culture and expand its space to house new ventures.
Lynda Hamilton Communications, which is headed up by experienced journalist and PR consultant Lynda Hamilton, has been brought in by founding director Bruce Hydes to work across all three brands and coordinate their PR and marketing activity.
Hamilton is a former national magazine journalist and also previously worked for The BIG Partnership, the largest communications consultancy in the UK outside of London, where she wrote and managed internal communications for BT Scotland, the Scottish Prison Service, Scottish Ambulance Service, and ExxonMobil.
She set up her consultancy after taking a year out as a freelancer and travel writer in 2011 and now works with PR clients throughout Scotland.
Hamilton is also the former managing editor of The Business Journal, an SME print title published by Romanes Media Group which stopped trading in June 2015 after being bought over by Newsquest.
She then set up online SME title, Scotland B2B (East Coast Edition), in August 2015.
Hydes, who is one of three directors at ESS, said: “We’re delighted to have Lynda on board and know she will make a big difference to our PR and marketing activity. In fact, she already has – having achieved coverage for us in the likes of the Daily Record, Scotsman, Recruiter Magazine and, of course, Scotland B2B.
“We have experienced 35% growth in the last year and have already expanded our Edinburgh team so this support is very timely. We look forward to working with Lynda as we continue our incline and can’t wait to find out what creative ideas she has in store.”
Hamilton, who has written for the likes of My Weekly and The Scots Magazine, added: “The ESS guys are real innovators in the world of recruitment so there’s no shortage of stories to tell. They have already achieved amazing things in the short time I have worked with them and I look forward to accompanying them on this exciting journey.”