We first came across Studentgems.com courtesy of The Pitch – an excellent competition run by Sift Media in a Dragon’s Den style. Thanks to their comprehensive Twitter coverage we took a look at their site and what they had to offer – and it’s absolutely on the money as a broker between students, keen to learn and gain experience, and small and big business, keen to keep costs low and have a flexible labour force.

Win-win is always a good starting point for any business and they certainly achieve that alongside great PR coverage on The Guardian, BBC and Observer websites.

In a nutshell, if you are a business looking for specific local skills, you register on the site and advertise those skills. If you are a student with those skills, and have registered, the site will do the brokering – you search or people find you, negotiate a fee and the site takes a small subscription fee.

Joanna Ward is the founder of the site and can be followed here on Twitter.

Think flexible – think creative – do you really need another full time person, or would a relatively cheap flexible resource be a better approach? Studentgems may be the answer for you.