Nick Jones, director at Blue Eskimo, says that the company’s team has more than doubled in size in the last year. "We’re responding to customer demand by expanding our own resources," says Jones.

"The learning sector pretty much held its own during the recession, as confirmed by our annual salary and work survey. But the demand for new people has risen sharply in the last year – so we’re investing to keep pace."

Around two thirds of learning professionals say they will turn to Blue Eskimo when looking for a new job, so it’s no surprise that the company is astonishingly well connected. "We have thousands of subscribers to our job alerts, thousands of registered applicants, and thousands of connections and followers on LinkedIn," says Jones.

Its team isn’t the only area in which Blue Eskimo is investing. The company has just launched a new website, designed to make it both easier and faster to find jobs and to apply for them. "We’ve added quite a few new features," says Jones. "Better support for people who are using mobile devices, for example, and one-click job applications via your LinkedIn profile. We’ve made it easier to search on different kinds of jobs and opened up new ways for people to search too."

The company is also launching a new service this year, "Skills on Demand", to help organisations get skilled learning professionals for specific projects, as and when needed. "Some skills are more naturally freelance or outsourced," says Jones, "plus companies’ demands can rise and fall – meaning too large a workforce is an unwanted overhead. Skills on Demand lets companies get the skills they need when they need them."

Again this year, Blue Eskimo will be exhibiting at LEARNING LIVE, 09–10 September, at Bishopsgate in London. "As a core part of the learning sector," says Jones, "attending LEARNING LIVE is something that helps keep us connected with our customers and candidates. It’s a great event, and we’re always proud to be a part of it. Plus, as the only recruitment company that’s accredited by the Learning & Performance Institute, we like to work in partnership with the Institute as much as possible."

Recruitment companies are often seen as a forward indicator for the success of the sectors they serve. Nick Jones believes that this is the case with Blue Eskimo. "We’ve serviced the sector for well over a decade", says Jones, "and this is the busiest we’ve ever been. If that’s not indicative of the learning sector’s fortunes, I don’t know what is."