After spending six months in Vietnam, Sue Trafford arrived back in Oxford looking for a fresh challenge. She had kept in touch with Claire Law, a former colleague at recruitment agency Inspired Selection.

Ms Law was also at a loose end, having resigned her job when the company was taken over, and moved to the West Country.

The pair decided to team up to set up their own business.

Ms Trafford, 49, said: "We both wanted to get back where our heart was, which was the publishing industry."

Their company, Atwood Tate, specialises in publishing recruitment. At the moment there are just the two of them, with Ms Law running the London office and Ms Trafford in Oxford.

She said: "Oxford is the second largest publishing centre in the UK outside London and I've been renewing my old contacts. I'm surprised how little has changed since I've been away."

She was concerned about the effect of the recession, but says the Oxford publishing industry has not been too badly hit, with recruitment freezes rather than redundancies.

"People have been very encouraging, saying they are glad there's another specialist with the skills to recruit publishing staff. It's been very positive so far and we are prepared to commit and give it time to grow."

Before spending eight years with Inspired Selection in Oxford, Ms Trafford had various jobs in Oxfordshire's publishing industry, working for Bookpoint and Heinemann, then as administrator for the African Books Collective.

She was one of the first people to gain a degree in recruitment, a pioneering course based at Middlesex University.

She had spent eight years at Inspired Selection, rising to become a director, when her husband was offered a six-month role in Vietnam by his employer, a mobile communications company.

Ms Trafford said: "I spent six months travelling with my husband, having decided it was time for a change. Then I worked as a consultant for a while.

“I had stayed in contact with Ms Law with the odd e-mail and phone call, and we started to sow the seed of an idea for our own business."

She has taken an office at Prama House in Summertown, while Claire has set up a London office in Marylebone.

"At the moment it is just the two of us but we would like to build a team as the business grows," she said.

"I'm in London two days a week and I spend a lot of time talking to clients and candidates, so I don't get lonely."

As a new company, they have been using Twitter and other social media from day one.

"It keeps us in touch with what's going on, and gets us out there, talked about."

o Contact: 020 7487 8314.

Web: www.atwoodtate.co.uk