[JDiculous]

Any recruiter is only as good as his/her listings. Comparing recruiters is like comparing NYC brokers. They're pretty much all terrible (principle-agent problem, along with tending to be the type of person who had to resort to recruiting because they couldn't get a better job), only as good as their listings, and inherently work to your disadvantage by making you significantly more expensive to employers (recruiters charge employers ~20% of your first year's salary). Again, even if your recruiter has an awesome personality and makes you feel fuzzy inside, at the end of the day he/she is only as good as his/her listings.

A better post would be to evaluate companies so that we can bypass the recruiters, make our own educated unbiased decisions, and capture all of our market value.

[fecak]

As a recruiter, I'd agree that many are terrible, and you're correct that many got into recruiting because it is an easy industry to enter. Recruiting firms pay commission-based comp packages, so the risk to a bad hire is rather low. Give them a phone extension and a computer, maybe a premium LinkedIn account, and they're off. Lots of C students in recruiting.

A recruiter's listings are somewhat important, but not as important as their knowledge of the market. A recruiter could have a weak contingency relationship with all the best companies in town, but if they don't understand something as basic as the market value of each candidate (not to mention a host of other things) they are doing their candidates a disservice.

Good recruiters usually have good listings because hiring companies tend to disengage from recruiting agencies that don't act ethically.

[hunterloftis]

> Good recruiters usually have good listings because hiring companies tend to disengage from recruiting agencies that don't act ethically.

In my experience, companies that (have to) use recruiters tend to have other broken practices as well. For example, the person in charge of recruiting agency relationships - usually a non-technical middle manager - may neither know nor care about sound or ethical results.

[scarface74]

I disagree, I've worked with many great tech recruiters during the past 20 years that know the market. I've never had my resume submitted without my permission. The last time I was looking for a job with a certain salary, location, and work environment, they were extremely helpful filtering out the jobs that didn't meet my criteria.

Employers rarely post salary ranges and it kept me from wasting time by just telling recruiters I won't interview for any job that pays less than $X. I had 10 phone screens with different companies and an offer within two weeks - without blindly applying for a job that would have paid much less than was acceptable.

[PopeOfNope]

Is there any particular recruiter you work with?